Gulfstream’s newly refurbished London Design Centre offers myriad ways to spec your jet

If someone is in the market for a new Gulfstream business jet (starting at around $25m for the smallest G280), then chances are they’re very familiar with the world of truly bespoke design, whether it’s via yachts, architecture, interiors, haute couture or the special in-house studios set up to customise every facet of a luxury automobile. The gateway to this universe of customisation is the discreet, private office or atelier, where design decisions can be made at leisure, preferably over a glass of something fizzy.

Gulfstream’s newly refreshed London Sales and Design Centre scratches that itch for the private aviation customer. Located in the heart of Mayfair – a realm of family offices, wealth managers and big, big brands – the centre is aimed at those who want to check over every single detail of this rather substantial purchase, as well as fly in to check up on the progress of their order.

Gulfstream has had this space for over a decade, along with similar venues in Beverly Hills and New York. The newly refreshed interior, tucked away in an office block with no external signage, is fully experiential, with full-size interior mock-ups of the G700 and G400 aircraft to show off the variety of finishes, fixtures and seat types.

The target audience are those rare passengers who might be spending 400-plus hours a year aloft in their aircraft as they criss-cross the globe for business or pleasure. At this rarefied altitude, the thread counts must be high, the leather supple and even the throw cushions can be defined down to the very last stitch.

My tour of the Gulfstream space began in the Design Showroom, a boardroom-style area where the tables groan under the weight of mood boards and material samples, along with indicative illustrations of the kind of interior you could end up with. Unlike the automotive sphere, where decades of discretion have only recently given way to a new era of polymorphous polychromy, jet interiors are still rather sober, erring towards palettes of tan, taupe, cream and only muted colour. It’s a very, very conservative realm, for the most part – perhaps because many of these private aircraft spend the remaining 8,360 hours (when they’re not being maintained) being chartered out to other customers. Garishness would be frowned upon.

While more outré colour schemes no doubt exist, Gulfstream caters mostly to quiet good taste, as evidenced by the twin mocked-up interiors that greet customers as they step out of the elevator. Mike Bryden, the senior principal designer on hand to show us the ropes of the specification process, cut his teeth on the UHNWI clientele at Rolls-Royce, and expectations are similarly high.

Just as the interior of the Qatari royal 747 recently gifted to the American administration wouldn’t be comparable to a commercial airliner, a modern private jet interior is a step back from the shagpile, chandeliers and sunken conversation pits of the gilded and groovy first-generation private jets of the 1970s and 1980s.

Partly, this is down to certification – every single design and material decision has to tick a long list of safety criteria. But it’s also down to pragmatism and function; even in a private plane, you’re mostly just sitting, eating or sleeping, along with taking in the occasional movie, meeting or (in rare cases) shower or yoga session. As a result, elaborate furniture choices or design decisions are either legislated into impossibility or just not practical.

That’s evidenced by the relatively conventional layouts shown in the two mock-ups. Yes, the seats are broad and the aisles are wide, but visually there’s not a lot to set them apart from a well-specified contemporary first-class cabin. Where things truly differ is in the details, and how involved customers can get in shaping things to their liking.

Gulfstream prides itself on designing, building and delivering every facet of a private jet, rather than sending a ‘green’ aircraft off to one of the many specialist sub-contractors around the globe. Careful design detailing includes the alignment of the signature large oval windows alongside each seat, the arrangement of ambient lighting and the integration of IT and media devices into cabinets and bulkheads. Monograms and royal crests can be stitched on the seats, which are available in a variety of types, including swivelling, bed-converting models.

The latter elements can be decided using Gulfstream’s configurator app, displayed to customers on a powerwall-style presentation screen but also available on a tablet so they can play around with it at their leisure. Here is where you can drill down into the number of living areas a jet interior can be divided into, depending on the model. It might take anywhere between three and 12 months to specify an aircraft, followed by a year in build, so the gamification of the process through 3D walkthroughs and visualisations is very much a way of retaining customer engagement.

Interiors can be subdivided with curtains or bulkheads, timber finishes can use certain woods or even favourite trees. Seats can be arranged individually or as benches or sofas, with options for full-size beds and even shower rooms. Crew spaces can be sectioned off or more open to allow galley access to all. Thousands of permutations are available.

Across over 500 sq m of furnishings, fixtures and accessories, the Gulfstream customer is made to feel special. The downsides of extreme personalisation are flagged – a new carpet or seat material might take many months to certify, so it’s best to stick with the (extensive) range of what’s already signed off – but ultimately the choice is theirs.

Gulfstream can lay claim to pioneering the idea of personal business travel with the introduction of the Gulfstream I in 1958. Over the decades, the company (under parent company General Dynamics) has built over 3,300 aircraft with a modern portfolio that starts with the ‘super-midsize’ G280 and builds up to the continent-crushing G800.

The definition of an asset is something that can be used to produce positive economic value. Like a superyacht, a private jet is expensive to buy, expensive to run and prone to steep depreciation. Yet the asset being created here is time, and Gulfstream’s customers both private and corporate are in the business of spending money to save time to make money. As a result, they can afford to spend time on a pleasurable specification process, something they’ll find within this newly refurbished Sales and Design Centre.