His father saw his son as a selfish, arrogant, impertinent brat who showed no respect for authority. This was all set against the sadness all the children felt about Palumbo divorcing their mother, Denia Wigram, in Denia later died of cancer.
During Christmas lunch, Annabella broke an expensive Georgian champagne glass and her father glared and glowered at her. She fled the table in tears and James defended her. That evening the teenagers returned all their Christmas presents and left them outside their father's bedroom door. Attached was a note saying their gifts were not given with love. Amid scenes of hysteria, James was banished from the family home. He left early the following morning and moved into a flat on Pall Mall owned by his grandfather.
Father and son have barely exchanged a civil word since. Relations were not helped when Lord Palumbo married Hayat Calil, the glamorous former wife of Lebanese businessman Ely Calil, within several weeks of their mother's death.
The new Lady Palumbo, who resigned from the trust, is outraged by her step-children's actions. He is a loving father. To have that heaped on you by your children is dreadful.
He is their only parent. How can anyone do that? Lord Palumbo no longer features in the Sunday Times Rich List and the truth is that while he was described as "a property magnate", he never developed any property. He founded the Walbrook Club, a private business and dining club in the City of London in Deeply conservative, formal and reserved, Lord Palumbo was his father's only son and was massively indulged as a child.
While he secured a law degree at Oxford, he had no interest in his father's business. Instead, he was fascinated by the arts and high society and preferred to play polo and collect fine wines. His friends regard him as a gentle, deeply cultivated man.
Today, Lord Palumbo lives in a house on Astell Street, Chelsea, with Hayat, who bought the property from the proceeds of her divorce from Ely. Lord Palumbo's office is a one-bedroom flat on Sloane Street from where he sells art on the secondary market.
Less well-known is his commercial property portfolio. Aloof and ruthless, James is the antithesis of the gregarious, back-slapping, nightclub entrepreneur.
Close to Peter Mandelson and an Old Etonian, the workaholic music tycoon is scathing about his peers and "the polo-playing set", who he says drift through life and don't contribute anything. The Palumbo children now want their father removed as a trustee of the Marriage Settlement and an account of the trust's assets to be conducted. Family friends are saddened by the revival of the bloodletting and say it is needless.
But there is one significant difference between the current dispute and the one in In the previous conflict, Laura Palumbo sided with her father against James and Annabella. Today she has switched sides. For Lord Palumbo, the prospect of a truce is inconceivable. Family friends say his grandfather would have approved of James's stance. After gaining a degree in Law, Palumbo began work for the next 30 years in the family business together with his father, Rudolph, who was a successful property developer.
In July , Palumbo journeyed to Chicago to meet his architectural hero, Mies van der Rohe, the former Director of the Bauhaus at Dessau, Germany; and to offer him a commission to design the comprehensive redevelopment of a prominent site adjacent to Bank junction and the Mansion House in the City of London. The design comprised a storey office building to be occupied by Lloyds Bank Overseas, together with a new London square at its base, to be known as Mansion House Square, landscaped by Lanning Roper.
The controversial development was finally rejected in the s after a ten week public enquiry; and an alternative scheme by Sir James Stirling was designed for the same site, but known as Number One, Poultry. This project also was also subject to another public enquiry followed by a road closure enquiry. This scheme received the support of the then Governor of the Bank of England, Lord Leigh-Pemberton, amongst many others, and whose successor as Governor, Lord Eddie George, led the topping-out ceremony.
The development was finally completed in after forty years of endeavour; and was one of the last designs by Sir James Stirling. In he commissioned the sculptor Henry Moore to carve an altar made from a single slab of travertine marble stone with a weight of eight tons. Palumbo worked as a Samaritan for five years and was Churchwarden from In Palumbo installed a sundial in the church garden, also by Henry Moore, dedicated to the memory of his former wife, Denia Wigram who died in It is inscribed with the words: "I count only the sunny hours.
This was a stroke of serendipity since it was a photograph of the Farnsworth House that had first captured his imagination as a pupil at school and sparked his lifelong interest in Architecture. The property was purchased in and opened to the public in
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