INTERVIEW Celia Sinclair proved to be just the woman for the job when it came to rescuing historic tearooms designed by renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Jess Unwin found out more It’s not every day that HRH Prince Charles and Camilla, Glasgow’s culture might be lost forever, she decided she Duchess of Cornwall, drop by for tea. But a royal visit was would be the one to save it: “I had a Eureka moment. Maybe one of the highlights of Celia Sinclair’s remarkable five-year I’m a madwoman but I thought to myself, Celia, you are struggle to rescue a Glasgow icon of architecture and design. going to have to be the one to do this.” What brought them to the city’s Sauchiehall Street was a She bought the building and then handed over ownership grand event to mark the £10m rebirth of the Willow Tea to The Willow Tea Rooms Trust, a registered charity she Rooms at number 217 – tearooms that originally opened in created. Between 2014 and 2018, using a mixture of private 1903 and were designed by the now internationally and grant funding, the building was fully restored, including renowned Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. extensive re-creation of Mackintosh’s interior designs. With Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald had been much of the original furniture having been sold off to private given carte blanche by local entrepreneur and patron and museum collections throughout the world, Catherine Cranston to let their modernistic – and hugely reproductions had to be crafted. This included a specially influential – design talent run wild. They renovated the commissioned suite made for one of the building’s most exterior of the three-storey tenement and then introduced famous rooms, the Salon de Luxe, where glass chandeliers, their famous interior decorative style, including mirrored gesso panels and carpets were also re-created. Another and coloured glass, wrought iron features and distinctive extraordinary space that was brought back to life was the high-backed furniture. The cutlery, crockery and even the building’s stunning second-floor billiards room. waitress uniforms were also among their creations. Reopening as working tearooms in July 2018, under the name Mackintosh at The Willow, the restoration project was EUREKA MOMENT complemented by the creation of a retail outlet, plus an However, the tearooms closed in 1928 and, as the decades education, conference and exhibition centre in the adjoining passed, changing ownership and uses saw the building building at number 215 Sauchiehall Street. deteriorate, and its future shrouded in uncertainty. Enter Not all property developers would have chosen quite the Sinclair in 2014. Realising that an important part of detailed restoration path that Sinclair has taken with the 14 www.brewin.co.uk www.brewin.co.uk 15 INTERVIEW MACKINTOSH AT THE WILLOW IN tearooms. “Somebody else might have thought, great, I THE 1960S WHEN IT can make a lot of money out of this, but I consider myself a WAS A JEWELLERS capitalist with a social conscience. I knew it would be tough, but I also knew I would be contributing something back to society. I thought this would be a legacy, helping people to understand and enjoy a part of Glasgow’s heritage.” That heritage extends to being the venue for radical changes in the way people behaved at the beginning of the 20th century. Sinclair explains: “It was part of the social revolution that saw women come out of their homes for the first time to entertain and be entertained. This was happening at places like the Salon de Luxe, which was a very special room for ladies only. “But the tearooms catered for everyone – men and women, and it wasn’t elitist. That’s our target today, too. I was actually in the tearooms for lunch quite recently and looking around me I could see all sorts of people: younger, older and tourists from overseas – it was lovely.” THE RIGHT WOMAN FOR THE JOB Sinclair might joke that she was mad to get involved, but the more you learn about her, the more it seems it was meant to be. She combines a professional background in commercial property development with a lifelong passion for art and architecture – and a determined resolve to get things done. Now a trustee of the Glasgow Art Club, she recalls how, at “The tea rooms catered for the age of 12, she would spend every Saturday she could catching a tram to the city’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and everyone – men and women, Museum to study its contents. “That was the beginning of THE RESTORED and it wasn’t elitist” my love for art and design,” she says. MACKINTOSH AT THE Equally telling is her first foray into commercial property: WILLOW TEA ROOMS “In the ’80s I had a computer company. I was looking for city centre premises that were really modern but couldn’t find anything. I thought, well, I’m going to have to build it, running this place as a social enterprise and we’ve ground floor to the first floor exhibition in the so I did, including designing all the furniture, and that was created full-time jobs here for more than 40 people. traditional style of a Glasgow ‘wally close’ – a tiled when I got the bug.” Fifteen of them weren’t in education, employment or hallway entrance to tenements. To augment the Since last summer’s fire at the Mackintosh-designed training, but we’ve been able to teach them new skills educational side of operations, Sinclair would dearly Glasgow School of Art, the tearooms have very much with the help of the Prince’s Foundation.” like to have the resources to bring schoolchildren in become the main focus for Mackintosh admirers. And she’s keen to point out that the education centre at from Glasgow’s deprived areas, but buying or hiring a But, says Sinclair, it’s a place where people can actually Mackintosh at The Willow will host thousands of visiting minibus would be needed for that. “So, if anyone wants interact with his designs. “If you were touching his schoolchildren: “I really feel quite strongly that they should to donate some money to us, we’d be awfully happy,” original work in a museum you’d have to wear white see what this one architect, when he was still a young man, she says with a chuckle. gloves, but in the tearooms people are sitting on faithful was able to achieve. I hope that will inspire them to think Sinclair’s in no doubt that reviving the tearooms has reproductions of his chairs, they’re moving around in they can do something like this too.” been “one of the hardest things I’ve the spaces he designed, enjoying his skill with light, and The tearooms might be up and ever done”. She adds: “You can end up getting the whole experience.” running, but the restoration work isn’t “We’re running this so subsumed by something like this, done yet. Sinclair says: “There’s more but now I’m finally able to pop into YOUNG PEOPLE LEARNING NEW SKILLS we’d like to do but we still need to place as a social the tearooms in an off-duty capacity Sinclair, a Brewin Dolphin client, is proud of what’s raise funding. On the historical side, enterprise and we’ve for a cup of tea. When I do, people been accomplished at Mackintosh at The Willow, but not we want to re-create the original stop me to say thanks for what we’ve ALAN DAWSON, created full-time MASTER BLACKSMITH, just because of the restoration of the great man’s designs: Mackintosh pay desk and install done here, that it’s a great thing for WAS ONE OF THE “I’m very proud of all the young tradespeople who have additional handmade Mackintosh Glasgow. It’s really quite touching and EXPERT CRAFTSMEN jobs here for more WHO RESTORED THE learned skills during the work because we insisted young lighting.” Another plan is to decorate heartwarming to learn that so many TEAROOMS trainees and apprentices should be involved. We are Clark Contracts Rooms Trust, Council, The City Willow Tea Glasgow Alamy, Photography: the staircase that goes from the than 40 people” others think it’s a special place too.” 16 www.brewin.co.uk www.brewin.co.uk 17.