At home with Hilary Weston The former model who invented the Primark label, owns Brown Thomas and went on be Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, has worked alongside her billionaire husband, Galen, for five decades
Sat, Feb 8, 2014, 01:00
Hilary Weston outside her home in Windsor, Florida
Hilary and Galen Weston at their home in Windsor, Florida
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Hilary Weston is wintering in Windsor – a gated community for the very wealthy on Florida’s Atlantic coast, with a somewhat fitting name. In Canada, where the Westons sometimes live, the couple has been compared to royalty, and it was Hilary who chose the name for the Florida estate that now has some 325 luxury homes (she also has a say in who gets to buy or build there), but Windsor is just a small part of the Weston story. Together Galen and Hilary Weston head up a multi-billion dollar fashion and food empire that includes Brown Thomas as well as Penneys, Selfridges, and luxury goods stores and supermarkets across Canada. Add to that vast property interests and a generous philanthropic programme, and you have a life that does not allow for too much Florida downtime.
Galen Weston, leader of his family’s Anglo-Canadian business empire and owner of Selfridges – obituary
He had a simple set of precepts: owning property rather than leasing, keeping debt low, a strong family work ethic and loyal key executives
14 April 2021 • 2:23pm
Galen Weston: it was said that the British Westons came to regard sociable, polo-playing Galen as their benign ‘playboy uncle’
Credit: Nils Jorgensen/Shutterstock
Galen Weston, who has died aged 80, was the head of the billionaire Anglo-Canadian dynasty whose fortune had its origins in mass-produced sliced bread. Though best known as the steward of the family’s Canadian and Irish interests, he was also the owner of Selfridges, a friend of the British Royal family – and the target, in 1983, of a botched IRA kidnap attempt.