Duke’s death hands property empire to 25-year-old son
第六代威斯敏斯特公爵之子将继承地产王国
广州地产翻译公司：杰拉尔德·格罗夫纳周二去世，享年64岁。这意味着他25岁的儿子将继承规模庞大的地产帝国。
In 1677, Sir Thomas Grosvenor married the 12-year-old heiress Mary Davies and came into possession of 500 acres of swamp, pasture and orchards to the west of London.
1677年，托马斯•格罗夫纳爵士(Sir Thomas Grosvenor)迎娶了12岁的女继承人玛丽•戴维斯(Mary Davies)，籍此拥有了伦敦以西占地500英亩的湿地、草地和果园。广州地产翻译公司。
More than 330 years later, a majority of those 500 acres remain in the possession of Sir Thomas’s family. Now, however, they are part of London’s most exclusive districts and the core of a property empire worth billions that stretches around the world.
330余年后的今天，这500英亩土地大多数仍由格罗夫纳家族拥有。不过，如今它们是伦敦最高端地段的一部分，也是一个房地产帝国的核心，这个房地产帝国价值以十亿美元计，地盘遍及世界各地。
With the death on Tuesday of the sixth Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, at the age of 64, the vast Grosvenor estate passes to his 25-year-old son Hugh, who inherits one of London’s remaining great landed estates, albeit one that underwent fierce modernisation during his father’s era.
周二，第六代威斯敏斯特公爵杰拉尔德•卡文迪什•格罗夫纳 (sixth Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor，上图为杰拉尔德•卡文迪什•格罗夫纳与英国女王的合照——编者注)去世，享年64岁。这意味着庞大的格罗夫纳地产(Grosvenor estate)被传给他的儿子、现年25岁的休(Hugh)，后者将继承伦敦仅剩的庞大地产之一，尽管这块地产在他父亲的有生之年经历了大刀阔斧的现代化改造。广州地产翻译公司。
Gerald Grosvenor may have been only the 68th richest person in the world, but he was possibly the wealthiest aristocrat. Born to vast wealth, he proved to be an accomplished businessman.
杰拉尔德•格罗夫纳也许只是世界上排名第68位的富豪，但他可能是最富有的贵族。出生于富豪之家的他，证明自己是一个成功的商人。
“For a family that did not need to set themselves up as a professional business, they did an amazing job of creating a very powerful brand — and the legacy of much of that would be down to the late duke,” said Toby Courtauld, chief executive of the listed property company Great Portland Estates.
“对于一个并不需要把自己组建成一家专业企业的家族，他们完成了一项了不起的壮举，创建了一个非常强大的品牌——而这份品牌遗产的很大一部分要归功于已故公爵，”上市房地产公司Great Portland Estates首席执行官托比•考陶尔德(Toby Courtauld)表示。
“That will be an enduring legacy. He has created an exceptionally high quality real estate business.”
“那将是一份经久不衰的遗产。他创建了一家极高质素的房地产企业。” 广州地产翻译公司。
The Grosvenor family’s history began with the arrival of Gilbert le Grosveneur — a surname meaning “master of the hunt” — in 1066 with the Norman conquest. This led the late duke, speaking to an FT reporter in 2004, to give the following advice to young would-be entrepreneurs: “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.”
格罗夫纳家族的历史始于吉尔伯特•拉格罗夫纳(Gilbert le Grosveneur)在1066年诺曼人征服英格兰(Norman conquest)时期的到来；le Grosveneur这个姓氏意为“狩猎大师”。这使已故公爵在2004年与英国《金融时报》的一名记者交谈时，向有志创业的年轻人提供这样的建议：“确保他们有一个祖先是征服者威廉(William the Conqueror)的好朋友。”
A descendant married the heiress to the Eaton estate near Chester, north-west England, which became the family seat, in the 1440s; in 1634 the second baronet, Richard Grosvenor, acquired valuable Welsh mining holdings.
吉尔伯特•拉格罗夫纳的一个后人娶了伊顿庄园（位于英格兰西北部切斯特附近）女继承人，15世纪40年代那里成为家族所在地；1634年，第二代男爵理查德•格罗夫纳(Richard Grosvenor)获得了宝贵的威尔士矿业财产。
The estate was imperilled during the English Civil War when it was sequestered after the Grosvenors supported the king, but they reclaimed it through payment of a fine and soon after Sir Thomas made his auspicious marriage to Mary Davies. “We have a very strong survival instinct,” Gerald Grosvenor told the FT. “We have been pursued by every single government and, prior to that, Cromwell had a damn good go at us. The great thing is that we have kept our heads on our shoulders.”
这个庄园曾在英格兰内战(English Civil War)期间陷入险境，由于格罗夫纳家族支持国王，庄园遭到扣押，但家族通过缴纳罚款收回了庄园。之后不久，托马斯•格罗夫纳爵士就与玛丽•戴维斯结婚，为家族带来好运。“我们有一种非常强烈的求生本能，”杰拉尔德•格罗夫纳曾告诉英国《金融时报》。“我们受到每一届政府的拉拢，在那之前，克伦威尔(Cromwell)也曾积极拉拢我们。好在我们家从未遭遇人头落地的下场。” 广州地产翻译公司。
In the 1700s the family began developing the London land as a desirable residential area known as Mayfair, centred on Grosvenor Square, today the site of the US embassy. Later the family’s surveyor set out plans for Belgravia.
18世纪头十年，家族开始开发被称为梅菲尔(Mayfair)的伦敦地段，将其打造为一个令人向往的居住区，其中心是格罗夫纳广场(Grosvenor Square)，如今是美国驻英大使馆所在地。后来，家族的测绘师制定了伦敦贝尔格莱维亚(Belgravia)的开发规划。
Gerald Grosvenor, born in 1951, only found out that he would inherit the estate when he was 15, after his father came into the title unexpectedly. He had early ambitions to be a professional footballer and then longed for a military career, an urge he satisfied through 42 years in the Territorial Army, which comprises part-time troops. He told an interviewer at The Independent newspaper in the 1990s that his youthful weakness had been cars: “I had an appalling series of high-speed car crashes.”
1951年出生的杰拉德•格罗夫纳，只是到15岁时才知道自己将继承格罗夫纳地产，此前他父亲意外得到这一地产。早年他的抱负是当一名职业足球运动员，之后他渴望踏上军人生涯，于是他参加了由兼职军人组成的英国本土自卫队，服役42年，借此满足了这一冲动。他曾在上世纪90年代告诉《独立报》(The Independent)的一名采访者，他在年轻时代的弱点是飚车：“我遭遇了一连串可怕的高速车祸。”
But despite this — and although he managed to pass few exams at Harrow school — he showed a tendency to take the real estate business seriously, working in a central London property agency to learn about the market.
尽管如此，也尽管他在哈罗公学(Harrow School)没有通过几门课程的考试，但他表现出认真对待房地产生意的倾向，在伦敦市中心的一家地产代理机构工作，以了解市场。广州地产翻译公司。
The Grosvenor estate had already begun expanding internationally, with a development in Vancouver, by the time Gerald became involved in the 1950s as his father became ill. But at that time, he later said, the estate was “in bad shape”.
等到上世纪50年代父亲患病、杰拉尔德开始参与家族生意时，格罗夫纳地产已经开始国际扩张，在温哥华有一个开发项目。但据他后来表示，那时家族地产处于“糟糕状态”。
Today the group runs £13.1bn of assets — including those handled for third parties — and of its £6.7bn property portfolio, more than half is outside Britain and Ireland. It is active in 60 cities, employs 567 people and directly owns 1,550 properties, with a specialism in urban regeneration.
如今，格罗夫纳地产集团执掌着131亿英镑的资产（包括为第三方管理的资产），以及67亿英镑的房地产，其中一半以上位于英国和爱尔兰以外。它活跃于60个城市，雇用567人，并直接拥有1550处房地产，专长是城区重建。
It has been credited with shrewd market calls, including stepping back from the luxury housing market in 2014 because of concerns over pricing; prices in that segment have been on the decline since.
集团被誉为具备敏锐的市场悟性，包括在2014年由于担忧价格而从豪华住宅市场后撤；自那以来该市场领域的价格一直在下降。广州地产翻译公司。
By that time, the sixth duke — who always left its day-to-day running to a series of chief executives — had taken a back seat, stepping down as chairman of its property business in 2007. He once said he would rather have been born as Joe Bloggs. “Given the choice, I would rather not have been born wealthy, but I never think of giving it up. I can’t sell. It doesn’t belong to me,” he said.
那时，始终把日常经营工作交给一个又一个首席执行官的第六代公爵，已经退下第一线，在2007年走下了家族房地产生意董事长的宝座。他有一次说，他宁愿生来就是一个普通人。“如果可以选择，我宁愿不要出身豪门，但我从来没有想到要放弃它。我没法卖。它不属于我，”他说。
But many in the industry credit him with the professionalisation of the group, which unlike other family offices has chosen to operate as a public brand and to regenerate already lucrative slices of real estate.
但业内很多人把集团的专业化归功于他；与其他家族理财室不同，该集团选择作为一个公共品牌运营，并且敢于重建已经非常赚钱的房地产。
