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S eated on the other side of the table, Patrick Mavros exudes an aura of the African savanna, as if he just strode from the golden sands of his native Zimbabwe, straight into the posh dining room of New York City’s Club Macanudo. He wears a chocolate-brown safari jacket over a white linen shirt, slate trousers with reinforced seams and is crowned by a custom, broad-brimmed hat that has a guinea-fowl feather—a

keepsake from his wife, Catja—protruding from its band. He appears to be more of a seasoned big-game hunter, ripped from the pages of a Hemingway story, than the preeminent master silversmith to the world’s aristocracy. As it turns out, he’s both, as well as many other things, including raconteur, polio survivor, retired baker, conservationist and a former member of the Selous Scouts, an elite special forces unit that fought in the Rhodesian Bush War.

He rests his lit Cohiba Comador in a crystal ashtray on the table, sets his hat next to it and runs a hand through his untamed, wispy salt-and-pepper hair, revealing a bearded countenance that is simultaneously stern and friendly, highlighted by piercing brown eyes.

“Alright,” he says, a charming lilt in his British accent, “where shall we begin? I know!” He affixes a pair of pince-nez reading glasses to the bridge of his nose and thumbs through his iPhone, which displays a photograph of five men who work for Mavros standing shoulder to shoulder, grinning and holding up a massive python no less than 40 feet long. “The boys caught that this morning.”

Just another day of unexpected adventures at Mpata Farm, Mavros’s 1,500-acre compound that overlooks the Umwimsi Valley, located about 20 miles outside of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city. Named after the pitter-patter sound of water splashing off the granite rocks at the base of a waterfall on the grounds, Mpata is the center of Mavros’s growing silver empire. It’s the place he calls home, and it’s where he and Catja raised their four boys. Also, his state-of-the-art silversmith’s workshop is located there, as well as a gallery that showcases and sells his newest creations.

Self-taught artisan and cigar lover Patrick Mavros has turned his stunning, wildlife-themed silver creations

into a top luxury brand BY ANDREW NAGY PORTRAITS BY MATT FURMAN

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Patrick Mavros, silversmith to the stars, puffing away happily at Club Macanudo.

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Most important, the majority of Mpata Farm is a wildlife sanctuary, an undisturbed area where hundreds of species of birds, lions, hippopota-muses, elephants, monkeys, crocodiles, zebras and, yes, snakes, live among tall baobab trees and various other indigenous flora. It’s precisely these images that have inspired and influenced Mavros’s silversmith art. The artisan says he often sits on the veranda of his house atop a hill, sketchpad in hand, puffing a cigar and drinking English breakfast tea while studying the animals in the valley below. Ultimately, his clientele is buying into his chic-bushman lifestyle, and some even trek to his estate to view it first-hand. They come not only to witness how Mavros creates his exquisitely lifelike, naturalistic silver wares, but to experience a part of the world many only read about in books or see in films.

“Our business is not just commercial, but a way of life,” says Mavros. “A sort of Swiss Family Africa. To go and see a home with this family and the manner in which we live in our community is remarkable. There is great hospitality and a great sense of calm. And excitement, because you never know what you might be summoned to look at. A spitting cobra, or a baboon on top of an anthill. Nevertheless, it’s 100 percent Zimbabwe.”

Mavros’s silver pieces include regular-production items for the home, ladies jewelry and men’s adornment. Additionally, Mavros offers special-ized pieces such as cigar ashtrays, penholders, candelabra, as well as commissioned works that are designed and produced either by Mavros himself or one of his sons, who all participate in the family business.

Each item is handmade out of British sterling silver using a technique called lost-wax casting in which silver, a natural byproduct of Zimbabwe’s gold industry, is heated up to 1,000 degrees centigrade (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). While that’s done, an original wax model is coated with liquid rubber, which sets and is then carefully cut away. Molten wax is then injected into this rubber cavity where it cools and is then removed from the rubber mold as a perfect copy of the original wax model. This new model is then covered with plaster of paris and the molten silver is poured in. The heat melts the wax (so it’s only used once), which is replaced by the silver. After the silver cools, the plaster is broken to reveal

the silver casting. Pieces are inspected and then hallmarked with the company’s registered markings before being polished and shipped.

Whether it’s a pair of elephant earrings, an ashtray of a lion with two monkeys riding on his back, or an ornate silver sculpture of a baobab tree, each of Mavros’s works strives to capture a unique tale in incredibly fine detail. “Each piece is an heirloom for the future. There’s a story behind all of this,” says Mavros as he takes another draw from his Comador. “Every story is authentic. We don’t make up nursery rhymes and fairy tales. It’s very big in my life that you come on the African safari with me.”

A fourth-generation native of Zimbabwe, Mavros was born in 1954 in Matabeleland, a province in the country’s western region. His grandfather Stamati Mavros emigrated from Greece to Durban, South Africa, in 1901, while his mother’s side hails from Scotland. According to Mavros, Stamati needed the advice of a lawyer, and since “no self-respecting English lawyer would represent a Greek,” his grandfather “sought the council of an Indian gentleman, Mr. Mahatma Gandhi.” In 1902, Stamati settled in what was at the time Southern Rhodesia, married a lovely lady named Aphrodite, and fathered six children, one of whom was Patrick Mavros’s dad.

In his youth, Mavros would tirelessly explore his tough, rural bush environment by climbing trees, swimming in streams, catching birds and watching with fascination the many kinds of animals that surrounded the family home. His life took a turn for the worse, however, when at the age of five he began showing signs of polio. Even though his father was a doctor, the road to recovery was arduous.

“There was a massive epidemic, and I just happened to be caught in it,” remembers Mavros, his voice dropping an octave. “It was a good thing, in the end, because it kicked me off with a bit of a disadvantage. It made me fight harder; made me climb trees higher than anyone else.”

Mavros credits his bout with polio as the catalyst that led him to discover his innate artistic talent. Bedridden, Mavros turned to carving animals out of ivory, or drawing and painting the flora and fauna that he loved. “I would get carried outside by our cook or mother so I could sketch,” he says. “And for a year of my life it was like that.” By the time he was about seven years old, his

The Mavros flagship store in London’s Chelsea neighborhood is designed to transport shoppers to his farm in Zimbabwe. Cigars are welcome out back.

symptoms had subsided. But, he says, “I was still a bit shaky on my legs until the age of 10. Really it was by 15 that I learned how to run.”

Mavros went to a school of about 350 kids divided into about five houses, modeled after the classic British boarding school system. “I didn’t do well in school at all,” he admits, ordering himself a double of Johnnie Walker Black, his preferred spirit, to wash down the hamburger (cooked rare) that he just ate. “I failed a number of my exams and was a bit lazy. If it had anything to do with birds, nature or art, I was the top of my class. But that didn’t get me through school properly.”

While academics might not have been Mavros’s strength, his boarding school in the wilderness did act as a springboard for one of his favorite pastimes: cigars.

“My housemaster, who we called E.J., was a gentleman who taught biology, and instead of giving us prayers in the evening at the end of school, he would often recite poetry to us,” recalls Mavros. One night, E.J. recited Rudyard Kipling’s widely known song “The Betrothed,” and the words tantalized young Patrick. He managed to get his hands on a friend’s father’s cigar—“a cheapo Villiger”—and hustled far away from the school grounds to light up. Only he didn’t take into account that the smoke might linger on him afterwards. Caught, young Patrick was summoned to his schoolmaster’s study.

“Mavros, do you know what the punishment is for smoking at this school?” Mavros says, clenching a fist and imitating his schoolmaster’s voice. “Yes, sir. Six of the best,” his voice rising to sound like a young boy. “It’s six lashings for cigarettes, Mavros! Thin, lady cigarettes would get you seven! But seeing as this is the gentlemanly affair of smoking a cigar, I will only beat you five. Now bend!”

For most, a story such as this would mark the end of any more cigar experimentation. But Mavros would keep sneaking smokes. Upon gradua-tion, at the still tender age of 18, he was conscripted into the Rhodesian Army, one of three sides fighting in the Rhodesian Bush War, a bloody civil war in which roughly 20,000 were killed. For two years he fought as an infantryman before joining the elite Selous Scouts, a special-forces unit that carried out the most dangerous of missions, often behind enemy lines, often employing asymmetric warfare tactics.

“The particular regiment I was into had a very high physical demand,” says Mavros. “Still, I used to smoke cigars in the army. None of them were very good. [Zimbabwe] couldn’t import good cigars in those days, and I couldn’t afford a good cigar anyway. But I still enjoyed everything about them. The way they

were constructed, how they looked, how they smelt. Always distinctive.” As Mavros continues his mouth moves, but his eyes remain locked on

the cherry of his cigar, as if he’s staring deep into the past.“Yeah, it was scary. But you’re young!” His voice oscillates. “You’d hunt

with adrenaline, and because you’re in the special-forces unit, you feel very confident. Very professional. There was a lot of glory in it for a young guy.” War, though, was not all glory, and it instilled in him a few valuable life lessons, least of all was discipline. “[War] taught me a little about leadership, and taught me a little bit about knowing who you were in life,” he continues. “[I learned] the value of life and the stupidity of human beings. Especially the stupidity of human beings who are supposed to be responsible leaders. It gave me a lot of confidence, I suppose. A leg up.”

As the war waned, Mavros was granted increasingly more time in between fighting. To fill in these gaps, and to earn some needed money, he accepted a job working for a bakery in Salisbury, then the capital of Rhodesia and known today as Harare. “I thought I was destined to be a big boss in this baking empire,” says Mavros, “but this art thing got to me.”

Just before the war ended in late 1979, Mavros found himself sick in the hospital. Recently wed to his bride, Catja, he wanted to create an original and unique gift for her while he recovered, so he carved a pair of ivory earrings (ivory was still legal then). When Catja wore the earrings to the salon, her friends raved about their beauty and requested a pair for themselves. Mavros set about creating four more pairs, which he sold for $6 apiece. “When I started and sold those first earrings,” Mavros says, “I knew I was onto something.”

Mavros quickly resigned from baking and turned his kitchen dining room table into his workspace. His medium was strictly ivory, and he would carve little figurines of animals that he had seen on his property. His pieces began selling, and soon he transformed his garage into a much-needed larger workshop. It was around this time that news reports started to expose the brutality of the ivory trade. Seeing that his new livelihood was threatened, Mavros began to study silver and the art of lost-wax casting. His first piece was a mother-of-pearl and silver jewelry necklace he produced for Catja’s mother. While the necklace looked lovely, Mavros recognized that his technique was imperfect, and so he visited a silver studio in Glenmoriston, Scotland, to hone his new craft.

Today, Mavros’s collection of work spans more than 500 pieces in all, with the cheapest selling for about $50 while commissioned pieces can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also employs a total of 25 workers, all of whom Mavros trained himself, none of whom had any previous PH

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The works of Patrick Mavros hark to his roots in Africa, and the beasts of the continent take center stage in many of his designs, including cigar ashtrays.

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education in silver casting. Regarding his management philosophy, Mavros says “I’m a big one for opportunity and giving people an opportunity. Most of my employees have been with me for decades. There can be some very interesting, explosive situations in our design studios as we go along on our journey. But, the fact of the matter is at the end of the day, we all pull the same rope in the same direction, which is what we must do.”

All four sons contribute new designs at a steady clip, which excites Mavros. “You never know what’s coming up,” he proudly states. “It’s not so competitive, but there’s such a desire to do well in front of your siblings that it is good. Every now and again, there will be something that will receive the full-on scorn of everybody, like any family. But that doesn’t happen often. All of them are very artistic, very hardworking, very productive.” In fact, the company’s most popular cigar ashtray, a bull elephant supporting tortoise shells and a hippo, was designed by his son Alexander when he was only 12.

The company has expanded the number of Patrick Mavros retail stores, which can be found in Harare, Nairobi and Mauritius, with a flagship gallery in London’s tony Chelsea neighborhood. “London is the center of the world when it comes to people who shop,” says Mavros, explaining his move to internationalize his African brand. The shop, Mavros says, has been patronized by every level of society, a fact that makes him proud.

Helmed by Alexander, now 37, the London showroom is meant to whisk customers away from reality to Mpata via its teak floors, photographs of the family on safari, and walls speckled with the antelope horns, buffalo and other animals of the savanna. Cigar smokers sense they’re in friendly territory as soon as they enter, as there is an assortment of desktop humidors, ashtrays and a humidor filled with boxes of Cubans. There’s even a place to puff in the back.

While the Harare and Nairobi stores are also designed around Mpata, the Mauritius venture, which opened in 2011, is an aesthetic departure for the company. “We already did Africa and its elephants, crocodiles and lions,” explains Mavros. “What next in life is beautiful? A tropical island! Flowers, coconuts, starfish, coral and sea urchins.” Mavros’s son Forbes, 35, who studied jewelry design at the Edinburgh College of Art, planned the Mauritius atelier and helped build it. Patrick Jr., 30, is wrapping up a master’s degree in Paris through Cartier, and Benjamin, 28, works out of Mpata Farm.

“Right from the beginning this business evolved,” says Mavros. “There was no magic key. It evolved through hard work and dedication and being reliable with customers and having integrity with everything we make… It slowly gathered momentum, and now it’s sitting rock solid.”

Many of the world’s elite are reportedly admirers of the creations of Mavros, including Juan Carlos I, former king of Spain, Sharon Stone, Bruce Springsteen and J.K. Rowling, as well as Kate Middleton and husband Prince William, who celebrated the birth of their son with silver figurines produced by Mavros. The artisan, though, doesn’t glorify his celebrity clients. “We like

to be discreet,” he says. “Of course, we feel very proud about it. But, I think one of the reasons that a number of these celebrities feel safe is that we don’t discuss what they’ve discussed with us. That’s a huge thing. That they can walk into our shop and just find calm and get away from reality.”

When Mavros isn’t traveling around the globe or designing his next piece (he just finished a series of slender cigar ashtrays that feature precious inlaid stones for The Lanesborough Hotel [see page 65]), the artisan enjoys bird hunting and taking his family on safari—and, of course, his fondness for fine cigars. It’s a hobby, he says, that he acquired through a Swiss client. “He introduced me to fine cigars. I used to inhale every inch of a cigar until my Swiss friend said don’t do it or you’ll get very sick one day. And then, of

course, it was a question of affordability. I liked cigars so much that I’d stand outside Davidoff every time I was to London and would just look through the window at these rich men buying boxes of cigars.”

One day he finally walked inside the store and met longtime proprietor Edward Sahakian, who took him through the store’s humidor and educated him about cigars. “He taught me how to keep cigars, what the different sizes meant and what was comfortable to smoke,” says Mavros. Then Sahakian put a selection of cigars in Mavros’s hand and told him to enjoy them. Now every time he visits London, Mavros pops in the shop to buy a few boxes. His current favorite is the Partagás Serie E No. 2, which he proclaims “a lovely size.” He used to smoke Romeo Churchills more often, “but I find you have to watch them. Some are too thin, too tight, too whatever. You’ve really got to be picky.”

Mavros doesn’t consider himself a cigar collector, despite having some rarities. “I know that I have

some valuable boxes of cigars—Davidoff Château Mouton Rothschild, Cohiba Esplendidos from the king of Spain and other boxes that were given to me years ago. But I’ve never dived into them.” So what is he waiting for? “I don’t know,” he says with a laugh. “I might give them to someone one day, someone who will really cherish them. I like the practical boxes of cigars that I can smoke.”

As for where he enjoys smoking, Mavros eschews the indoors. “Cigar clubs I very seldom go to,” he says. “I like fresh air to smoke a cigar. I like going on safari, sitting on a tribal stool, picking some coals out of the fire and just watching them make that cigar glow red. I puff it, as Kipling said, and watch the ‘soft blue veil of the vapor musing on Maggie’s face.’

“Every now and again I’ll smoke a cigar in my studio. Sometimes I have to. I could sit on two or three projects, and I’ll turn around and say ‘I have to have a cup of tea and smoke a cigar.’ Realign myself. And the soothing effect of that cigar on me now is vast. It absolutely tranquilizes me.”

Can he ever see himself retiring to his homestead? “Forget it,” he says, sharply. “I got work to do.” And with that Patrick

Mavros rises from the table, shakes hands, smiles and walks out the door, all dignity, ready for his next high emprise. v

=:=:=“Sometimes I’ll turn around and say, ‘I have to have a cup of tea and smoke a cigar.’

And the soothing effect of that cigar on me now is vast. It absolutely tranquilizes me.”

Mavros enjoys smoking cigars outdoors, preferably on safari while perched on a tribal stool, lighting his puros straight from the fire.