About the agency
About Larchcombe
A family agency on Queen Anne, sixty-five years old, third generation, never named in the newspapers if we can help it.
Larchcombe is a household staffing agency. We find house managers, butlers, housekeepers, nannies, private chefs, estate security staff and companions for private households in Seattle, on the Eastside and the islands, and in Zürich and Geneva. We have done so since September 4, 1961, from Dorothy Thayer’s kitchen table at first and since 1968 from the house on Tarrant Place West where we still are.
The agency is owned by Dorothy’s family and run by her granddaughter, Caroline Rendle. Seventeen people work at Tarrant Place and one in Geneva. We make about a hundred and forty placements a year and act for a little over three hundred households.
What we believe
- We visit every household before we place with it. We have never made an exception.
- We never name a client. Not on this site, not to other clients, not to anyone.
- We never charge candidates. We are paid by households, and only when a placement is made.
- We would rather say no. To a household whose brief we cannot fill, to a candidate whose file we cannot sign, and to a placement that would suit nobody.
- We answer the telephone. The duty line is answered at every hour of every day of the year.
More about us
- Our history, from Devon to Queen Anne.
- The team at Tarrant Place and in Geneva.
- What households and staff say.
- Careers at Larchcombe.