From The Sunday Times
April 5, 2009
At home with Jo Wood
The kids have moved on and Ronnie has moved out, but Jo Wood has a plan. She's turning her home into a green wedding venue
Holmewood House, home to Ronnie Wood's ex-wife, Jo
Lydia Slater
Holmwood House, a huge hunting lodge in Kingston Vale, Surrey, has seen a few parties in its time. The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and his wife, Jo, bought it a decade ago, and it has been the location of their most spectacular bashes. Each year, they hosted Woodfest, “a party for 300 of our closest friends”; their children Leah and Jamie held their weddings in the garden; Tyrone celebrated his 21st here and Jo her 50th. “There has always been an atmosphere here,” says blond, bearded Jamie Wood, 34, Jo’s eldest son and business partner, as we sip coffee in the panelled hall. “We’re used to coming downstairs and finding people who’ve been up for two days.” You can only wonder what the lodge’s original owner, Prince Albert, would have made of it — let alone Queen Victoria, who, according to Jo, used to come here for tea.
One of the best parties was Ronnie’s 60th, a gypsy-themed event held in the summer of 2007. “That was a good one,” Jo says. But since her husband walked out on her last year, to set up home with an 18-year-old Russian cocktail waitress, the parties have been in shorter supply. The authentic Romany wooden caravan they shipped over for that do still stands rather forlornly in the front garden, beside a couple of life-size plastic sheep and an antique hoopla stall Jo bought to amuse her grandchildren.
You don’t stay married to a Rolling Stone for 23 years if you’re a defeatist, though. Jo may be petite, blonde and kittenish to look at, but she clearly has a core of tempered steel. At 53, and already heading up an organic beauty company, the grandmother-of-five has decided to launch a new venture, hiring out her garden for eco-weddings. Surely she doesn’t need the money. “It would be nice to have something going on,” she explains. “It’s only little old me living in this part of the house. It needs people.” Naturally, giving your wedding a touch of rock’n’roll style doesn’t come cheap: eco-nuptials chez Wood start at a recession-busting £35,000 for the venue and infrastructure — bamboo marquee, loos and so on, which will be provided by Jamie’s event-organising company, Outer Sanctum. Still, for those who can afford it, there are definite advantages, such as unshockable hosts and a party that’s bound to go with a swing.
This is only the start of Jo’s plans, however. As we tour the gothic-style dining room, she casually announces that this is where she’s planning to open a pop-up restaurant during Wimbledon fortnight. “Jack, Leah’s husband, was talking about them while we were on the beach in Kenya at Christmas,” she says, “and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have a restaurant in my house just for two weeks?” A dedicated campaigner for the organic lifestyle, Jo wants her pop-up — which will be called Mrs Paisley’s Lashings — to spread the green gospel. “I want to show people that you can have a sustainable, organic, local dinner that tastes beautiful,” she says. (So fervent an eco-campaigner is she that she has even managed to convert Keith Richards. “He eats organic HP Sauce now,” Jamie says.)
For her first pop-up, Jo has enlisted the services of the environmental campaigner chef Arthur Potts-Dawson, who used to work for her at the Harrington Club, and is aiming to do 15 covers a night at about £100 a head, giving the profits to an eco-charity. “But as long as we break even, I'm happy,” she adds. (No doubts on that score: I’d be amazed if, by the time you finish reading this, they don’t have a waiting list as long as the Ivy’s.)
Maybe all this frenetic activity is her way of coping with a broken heart. But you can’t help suspecting that it might be the reverse. For the first time in decades, Jo Wood is free to focus her formidable energies on her own projects, rather than on looking after her errant spouse. “Mum’s had a new lease of life,” Jamie says. “It was hard at first when Dad went, but every cloud has a silver lining. She’s free and now she’s trying to spread her message. And she has so much energy — she’s amazing. We can’t keep up with her. She’s out all the time.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Sit at home and knit booties?” Jo retorts. “I don’t think so. How am I going to meet the right man if I’m not out and about?” She has, she says, “plenty of admirers”; however, the rumours that she’s already dating Jonny Elichaoff, who has split from his wife, Trinny Woodall, are wide of the mark. “It’s a load of rubbish, and anyway, he’s in love with his wife,” she says. “I met him at dinner and he talked about Trinny the whole time.”
And what of Ronnie? He seems barely to have taken anything away with him. The billiard room is still full of his gold discs and mementos, including a framed flag from the Cottonwood rehab centre in Tucson; a huge Grayson Perry drawing, given to him by Mick Jagger, has pride of place over the bar. “Of course we’re on good terms,” says Jo, brightly. “I’ve known the man for 31 years — why wouldn’t we be?” According to Jamie, when he came round recently to pick up some of his clothes, Jo not only fed him organic vegetable soup, but, concerned he was looking thin, sent him away with a Tupperware box of stew.
So, might he still return to the bosom of his family, from what looks, to the rest of us, like a superstar-sized midlife crisis? “I don’t know if we want him back,” says Jamie, firmly. “He’s made his choices and Mum has made hers. And it’s nice and peaceful here without him. Still, if he wants to, he’s more than welcome to come to dinner at the pop-up.” Only if he books quickly.
For information on eco-weddings or to make bookings for the pop-up restaurant, visit outersanctum.net
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/interiors/article6...
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At Home With Jo Wood (Read 751 times)
