The Flat That Epstein Bought - Liverpool Echo - July 11, 1964
HOME - with the man behind the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer, etc, etc.
Reported by Barbara Anne Taylor
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I don’t want to brag or cause any jealousy, but I used to queue for the Saturday matinee at a cinema that was next to a furniture shop that was called Epstein and Son and that Epstein’s other son manages the Beatles.
And that is as exciting as dancing with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales.
The other son is Brian, who has in his time pursued many careers until he found his present crock of gold. He did originally embark, with no lack of enthusiasm, on a career in his family’s furniture business.
CRAFTY CHERUB
“I was 21 at the time,” said Mr. Epstein, who looks like a sharp-clothed, crafty cherub, “and extremely interested in design and interior decorating - still am. I served,” he added stoically, “my apprenticeship with the Times Furnishing Company in Liverpool.
“I was fanatically keen on what I regarded as contemporary at the time. I felt quite a missionary zeal about it, so I wasn’t fired with enthusiasm about the furniture in my father’s shop. It all looked to me like greasy great walnut bedroom suites.
“I was full of notions about the customers really wanting the sort of furniture I wanted them to have. I overlooked the fact that my father is a successful business man because he knows what his customers want. However, I persuaded him to stock some of the furniture of my choice.”
When I asked Mr. Epstein if his chosen furniture sold, he received the question a trifle incredulously: “I saw to it,” he said stonily, “that it did” - and having subsequently witnessed something of his adroitness as a salesman, who can fail to believe him?
Mr. Epstein is clever at picking people; he picked his parents very wisely, for his indulgent father then set him up in his own furniture shop in Hoylake.
He was able to revel in the furniture of his choice and provide an interior decorating service to boot. “It was the interior decorating side I enjoyed most, I had lots of ideas and I love experimenting with colour.”
When I asked Mr. Epstein if he was able to submit his clients to his ideas he replied: “The customer is always right.”
Mr. Epstein inhabits the top floor and the roof, where he has potted plants and wrought iron furniture, and swinging chintz hammocks and a splendid view.
He has two bedrooms and a study and one large, long combined living and dining room, which is decorated in white, grapish green and amber and is inspiringly tidy.
“I can’t bear clutter, I’m obsessive about plainness and simplicity, in fact, this room looks cluttered to me,” he said, eyeing with some distaste this positive precedent for orderliness.
The Buyer of Antiques
“I like buying antiques, although I have no knowledge of them. I don’t care about their period or their history. I just care about their shape. I couldn’t live with only modern furniture now, you grow out of such utter devotion. It’s rather sad really.”
“I find it completely absorbing searching for exactly what I want but there’s really not much choice, is there? I mean, there appears to be a lot but when you get down to it there is really very little.
“And isn’t it sad when finally you’ve found exactly what you want, then you discover that it’s exactly what hundreds of other people want too. It sort of spoils the specialness of it.
“I found it an exciting experience furnishing my first home, it takes a lot of time and thought, because you are imprinting something of yourself there. I think there is something of me in this flat, though it’s not exactly right. I long to have a separate dining room... well, what I really long for is a house.
Knows What He Wants
“I know exactly what I want. I can’t describe it to you, I could perhaps draw it. It is certainly nothing like the castles and follies I keep being offered. It’s a house I’ve had in my head for ages, I’ll know it the moment I see it.
“Till then I’m happy here. I look forward to coming home, that’s the big test, and my friends seem to like it and that’s also important because I love entertaining.
“Yes the Beatles approve - at least they approve of most of the furniture: they were a bit scornful about the antiques. Paul is very fond of the rocking chair, but what they all approved of most was the way I had their photographs framed. Cilla thinks it is all fab.”
