Customers lose thousands as luxury kitchen firm run by ‘charmer who could sell ice in the Arctic’ goes bust
A family-owned business, Parlor Farm Kitchens proudly proclaims its ability to deliver craftsmanship, quality and sustainability.
Operating from a stylish showroom and workshop on the outskirts of the Gloucestershire town of Cirencester, the marketing area was largely aimed at the well-heeled folk of the surrounding Cotswolds and well-heeled customers everywhere.
The website says: ‘We are so specially designed that if you dream it we can make it, if not our designers will hold your hand through the whole process.’
But now Parlor Farm Kitchens has gone bankrupt, leaving more than £2 million in debt.
But even as customers were being deceived by delays in their high-spec installations, it emerged that boss Dino Mussell and his fellow managers, including his mother Tina Rowley-Mussell, were already setting up a new company with an almost identical name, Parlor Farm Kitchens & Cabinet Makers Ltd.
One angry shopper, named Lucinda, told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Mussell, the former landlord of the Wild Duck pub in Ewen, a former haunt of Prince Harry, exuded such charm that he could sell ice at the North Pole.
Her dream kitchen would cost her £50,000, with hand-painted timber frames and a custom island with breakfast bar. This includes £25,000 for the units; the rest goes to high-end countertops and appliances, including the highly acclaimed Lacanche range, the handcrafted selection of professional chefs including Raymond Blanc and Jean Christophe Novelli.
Parlor Farm Kitchens boss Dino Mussell is alleged to have left many seriously out of pocket – but customers claim he has not apologized
One of the state-of-the-art kitchens that Parlor Farm Kitchens fitted out before it went bankrupt
He agreed to pay the installments in advance, but as the installation day approached, excuses began to arise. He eventually went to Cirencester and discovered the business was closed. It applied for voluntary closure two months ago.
Mum-of-three Lucinda said when she finally contacted Mr Mussell he made no apologies.
‘He told me he expected to lose more than anyone else and that I should talk to the managers,’ he said. ‘His attitude was clear; It was pretty ‘poor me’.’
He was able to get his money back because he paid the company by credit card. Others were not so lucky.
A businesswoman said she and her husband invested nearly £60,000 in a new kitchen and utility room last summer.
He said: ‘We saved money for many years to be able to do this project. We lost a lot of money. We are financially ruined. And no, he didn’t apologize.’
Another pensioner lost £20,000 after asking the firm to renovate his kitchen. He said Mr Mussell wanted to ‘press me harder and harder’, adding: ‘He told me most clients spend between £80,000 and £90,000.’
A fourth woman, who spent more than £30,000, wrote online: ‘Just learned from the insolvency professional that I’m unlikely to get a single penny back. I’m broken.’
Former Parlor Farm Kitchens employees say they were forced to sell in late November. They now realize that the business is struggling and the new company name is already registered.
One creditor said of the directors: ‘They live a very ostentatious lifestyle and this clearly did not cause any distress as we struggled to get our money. I owe several thousand pounds. I know it [Mr Mussell] He bemoans that he supposedly lost a lot of money, but he has gained a considerable amount over the years.
The company prided itself on offering a service so special that it could do anything the customer imagined.
‘We knew they were in trouble, everyone knew, but they kept taking these huge deposits to work on new projects even when it was clear they had no way of surviving.’
When The Mail called on Mr Mussell’s £750,000 home in a village just outside Malmesbury in Wiltshire on Sunday, two stone lion busts, similar to those that once stood at the front of the company’s showroom, marked the electric gates. There were grazing horses and a stable block with more than half a dozen boxes and a mud-covered 4×4 with personalized number plates.
Mr Mussell, who proudly received the Manufacturing Guild Mark, which recognizes excellent furniture makers, in 2021, declined to comment.
A few miles away, in a £1 million barn conversion, his mother’s Porsche was parked outside the double-glazed door with personalized number plates. He said: ‘There is a lot of information out there that is true, but there is also a lot of information that is not true.’
Additional reporting: Simon Trump
