Mark Birley

Mark Birley, doyen of upper-crust nightclub owners in London's West End, has died of a stroke at the age of 77. The founder of Annabel's and several other clubs and bars, as well as an upmarket male cosmetics business, he was a member of the circle that included such figures as John Aspinall, Sir James Goldsmith and Lord Lucan.

When Aspinall acquired a building in Berkeley Square, Mayfair, for a pioneering gambling casino in 1963, the Clermont club, he offered Birley the basement so that he could realise his ambition to create a nightclub that would set new standards of luxury and displace such tired upper-class venues as the 400 Club in Leicester Square.

From the outset, Birley's approach was summed up by the phrase "only the best": no expense would be spared, either by himself as owner and investor or by members, who were charged the highest prices for membership, meals and drinks. For this, they received impeccable service, obsessive attention to the tiniest detail of decor, presentation, and exclusivity. The basic qualification for membership was money, preferably old money; but Birley had the commercial sense to allow in new money as well - provided there was plenty of it - discreetly enabling the nouveaux riches to rub shoulders with the louche end of the establishment, while lightening the wallets of all.

Annabel's was named after Birley's then wife, the former Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, daughter of the eighth Marquis of Londonderry, whom he had married in 1954. Birley spent a six-figure sum, enormous in the early 1960s, on reshaping the basement and garden so as to create a country-house atmosphere, complete with attentive servants, traditional (but meticulously prepared) meals and a dance floor off the expansive dining room.

Paintings and drawings by a wide range of artists lined the walls - originals only, nothing too outré. The music was equally unchallenging, and not too loud. At the same time, Birley decided, in a relatively daring step for the time and in the context of an exclusive West End club, not to insist on evening dress, though many clients wore it, perhaps because they had come in from the casino upstairs. But gentlemen were required to wear jacket and tie, a rule that was reimposed in 2002 after a brief but unpopular flirtation with 21st-century standards of dress.

Birley was the son of the society portraitist Sir Oswald Birley and his wife, the Irish artist Rhoda Pike. His childhood was marked by frequent and spectacular rows between his wealthy parents, who were on the fringe of the Bloomsbury group of writers and artists. He went to Oxford after Eton and national service, but the work ethic he had failed to discover at school did not appear at university either, and he was advised to leave after his first inglorious year, largely made up of late nights.

So he went into advertising, exploiting his inherited ability to draw, until he lost interest in working for others after six years and set up his own agency. He finally found his metier in dispensing luxury in 1959, when he acquired the first concession outside France to sell extremely expensive Hermès scarves, and set up shop in London's Jermyn Street.

Birley was handsome and 6ft 5ins tall, cultivating a relaxed, even languorous, manner and priding himself on his old-world manners. He favoured the finest bespoke clothes, handmade shoes, custom-made socks and very expensive cigars. He liked sports such as rally driving and skiing. But he was also an astute businessman who could have made a great deal more money than he did had he not been devoted to luxury and obsessed with detail; he went so far as to invent muslin wraps for lemon sections so no pip could escape when they were squeezed over fish.

But a life informed by, and dedicated to, luxury was no protection against sorrow. The face of his younger son, Robin, was terribly scarred at Aspinall's zoo when he was allowed into a tiger's cage at the age of 12. His elder son, Rupert, vanished without trace off the coast of Togo in 1986. Annabel left him for his old schoolfriend Goldsmith, though after the divorce they remained on good terms. But Birley never married again.

His other business ventures included Harry's Bar, in which the US shipping magnate James Sherwood (of Sea Containers) took a 49% stake; Mark's Club; George's; and the Bath and Racquets Club, a lavish gym for men.

Annabel's flourished in the 1960s and 70s but faded in the next two decades, when the Birley clubs were often half empty or worse. Then the turn of the century saw a revival of his fortunes. In 2001, Birley, a natural Thatcherite, made David Blunkett, then home secretary, an honorary member of Annabel's, where he met at least one of his much publicised female friends. The publicity surrounding Blunkett's link with the club probably did it no harm.

In his declining years, Birley fell out with Sherwood and his own children, who took over the running of the business in 2003. Last June he sold the clubs to the fashion and restaurant tycoon Richard Caring. Robin and his daughter, India Jane, a painter, survive him.

· Marcus Oswald Hornby Lecky Birley, businessman, born May 29 1930; died August 24 2007

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