Self-taught artisan and cigar lover Patrick Mavros has turned his stunning, wildlife-themed silver creations into a top luxury brand

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Seated 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
Africa
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Outof
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2. Patrick Mavros, silversmith to
the stars, puffing away happily
at Club Macanudo.

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148
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.

4. 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,Iusedtosmokecigarsinthearmy.Noneofthemwereverygood.
[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
setaboutcreatingfourmorepairs,whichhesoldfor$6apiece.“WhenIstarted
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
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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
ahumidorfilledwithboxesofCubans.There’sevenaplacetopuffintheback.
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
himtoenjoythem. 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
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“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.