A butler for the modern era

Open this photo in gallery:

Even as a young boy growing up in Toronto, Christopher Cantlon would govern himself with a meticulous sense of propriety. If his mother wanted to go to the store, he’d insist on changing into a collared shirt first.

Later, as a high school teacher, he continued in the same punctilious manner, arriving every day in a jacket and tie.

His handlebar mustache is always perfectly groomed. He likes things done properly. The right way.

So as he neared retirement from teaching in 2012, a friend’s suggestion that he try a new career as a butler seemed fitting.

“A light went on,” he says. “It was like, ‘Oh, right, hello!’”

And so the then-57-year-old Mr. Cantlon began a second career: As a private butler, a job he held for three years. Now, he’s back in Canada, at home in Stratford, Ont., where he’s training the next generation of students on style, etiquette and service.

Open this photo in gallery:

“People said, ‘Why would you want to be a servant?’ But there’s a difference between a servant and service. Service is a different puppy,” he says.

“I like to be helpful to people. Anticipate needs. Make sure everything is just so. It tickles my detail bone.”

The image of a butler (a word derived from the French boutilier, or bearer of wine bottles) might seem like relic of the distant past. But a modern-day version is akin to a house manager or personal assistant – someone who ensures the smooth functioning of a household. A butler’s role might include preparing and serving meals, managing household bills, and travel and schedule planning.

There are at least 10,000 butlers around the world, according to the International Guild of Professional Butlers, earning between about $65,000 and $110,000 a year working for the super-wealthy in hotels, on yachts and in private homes.

Mr. Cantlon’s training began at the International Butler Academy in the Netherlands. He was one in a class of about 20 students. Over the course of eight weeks, he learned everything from table-setting and etiquette to menu-writing. He wore a black waistcoat, grey vest and gloves so clean you could perform surgery in them.

Open this photo in gallery:

Each afternoon at the academy, they would run drills on common workplace hazards: For instance, how to navigate a crowded room with a tray (by holding it with the non-dominant hand, freeing up the dominant hand to guide through). Or how to go down a set of stairs without looking at the ground (by counting the number of stairs before you start).

Mr. Cantlon excelled at the academy. By graduation, he was offered a job there, to teach the next year’s class. He was also hired as private butler to the owner of the school, where he stayed for four years.

In the role, Mr. Cantlon travelled the world, serving at receptions and dinners hosted by the academy. He was there for the academy’s 2014 opening of a campus in Chengdu, China. At a wedding where the couple arrived by helicopter, he uncorked 101 bottles of Champagne, 60 bottles of white wine and 60 bottles of red – for 120 guests. At a reception for a Saudi company, he was one of 140 butlers assisting 140 guests.

But do the super-wealthy really need more help?

“I guess I get around that by thinking, ‘well, these are still human beings,” he says. They need clean clothes and meals cooked just like the rest of us – but they can outsource the work.

Mr. Cantlon insists the role is evolving for a modern time. After all, butlers of the past didn’t have many of the tools at his disposal.

“Unlike Carson,” he says, a reference to the stiff-lipped butler from Downton Abbey, “I know how to use a phone. I have a computer. I have e-mail.”

A butler these days must be adaptable, he says. “There’s the gold standard” – what they teach at the academy – “and then there’s the house standard.” In other words, each household’s own way of doing things.

For instance: A current online job posting in China asks that the candidate not only be knowledgeable about fine linens and wines, but also fluent in Mandarin, English and Russian. The job also requires European motorboat and motorcycle licences.

Open this photo in gallery:

What about Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant: Is Alexa a modern-day butler?

He considers it. “If the butler isn’t in the room,” he says at last. “You can say ‘Alexa, call the butler.’”

Mr. Cantlon, now 68, returned to Canada in 2014. He’s a volunteer at his church, and has worked part-time at several restaurants around Stratford. He also teaches service and etiquette to students at the Stratford Chefs School.

Still, working as a server, and butler, is an unusual way to spend retirement.

He says, again, that this work perfectly suits him.

“Details. Structure. Sequence. Order. Everything in place.” It’s important for him to do things right.

But why?

He takes another moment. A long sigh. He speaks in a low voice now. It comes back to that little boy in the collared shirt, he says finally. He was trying to cover up insecurities – the fact that he was a gay boy growing up in the 1960s.

“Being perfect meant nobody would see me. Nobody would know who I was, really,” he says. “Being perfect meant that I was not wrong. I wanted to be right.”

He’s let go of most of that now, he says, sitting in his apartment in Stratford. He’s wearing a collared shirt.