As the son of Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth, and Antony Armstrong-Jones, the first Earl of Snowdon and one of England’s most sought-after photographers in the 1960s and 1970s, young David Linley grew up both royal and bohemian. One day he’d be taken to the National Gallery by his mother and grandmother, the Queen Mother, to see a Vermeer—and only a Vermeer. When he’d ask, “What about all these?,” referring to the other works of art in the museum, he was told, “If you want to see those, you can go on your own.” Another day, his father, known professionally as Snowdon, would take him along to a meeting with the green-and-pink-haired punk fashion designer Zandra Rhodes in her studio.

The family lived in a sprawling four-story wing of Kensington Palace; their neighbors were the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. The main reception rooms had been restored by David’s father, who “put them back to how he felt William Kent would’ve done it,” David says, referring to the 18th-century English architect and landscape designer. Snowdon’s study adjoined the formal drawing room, and his darkroom and workshop were in the basement. “My father’s rooms, as a child, were a very exciting place to be,” David says, “not only because of the beautiful models who were coming to be photographed for Vogue or The Sunday Timesbut also because of the very avant-garde furniture that he had made. He made designs for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969 at Caernarfon Castle. He did this famous dais, where the Queen sat on this very modern, slate, throne-like sort of thing, and all the dignitaries sat on bright-bright-red chairs, which you could then buy.”

Born in 1961, fifth in line to the throne, he was christened David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley. (He is now 18th in line, and upon the death of his father, in January, he inherited the title of Earl of Snowdon.) He began his education with private kindergarten lessons at Buckingham Palace, along with his cousin Prince Andrew, and ended up at Bedales School, in Hampshire, Britain’s artsiest private school, along with his sister Lady Sarah, who was born in 1964. “Bedales was perfect for my sister and me,” he says. “Very open. Very few rules. No uniforms. Co-educational. And very little of ‘You have to do this like this.’ You very much controlled your education.”

This cocktail of the traditional and the modern, the grand and the simple, is reflected in the furniture David has made—“I’m a maker, not a designer,” he insists—since he founded his eponymous business, in 1982. It can also be seen in the 19th-century hunting lodge in Provence where he and his wife, Serena, a daughter of the 12th Earl of Harrington, spend their vacations with their children, Charles, 17, and Margarita, 14. Situated on 650 heavily wooded, hilly acres in the middle of the 457,000-acre Luberon Regional Nature Park (near Ménerbes, the village made famous by Peter Mayle in A Year in Provence), the Château d’Autet is very much the country house of an aristocratic couple, but one where everything—the décor, the garden, the food, the way of life—is unpretentious, low-key, relaxed, and done with a light, artistic touch.

Even the houseguest policy is spontaneous. “I don’t invite people anymore,” David explains. “People turn up. Because people who know this place like coming back. They just say, ‘I’m coming next week,’ which is nice.” Then there are what he calls the “escapees from St. Tropez,” who, after a few days of frantic yacht-hopping and nightclubbing in the jet-set playground, are content to lie by the pool and gaze out at endless fields of lavender set against the low, purple-gray Luberon Mountains, or play a late-afternoon game of pétanque, a French version of bocce, with metal balls designed by their host and kept in a wooden box made by him. The farthest afield David and Serena venture with friends is the occasional trip in their fire-engine-red vintage Citroën Deux Chevaux to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which is well known for its extensive flea markets. “We find things in local brocantes, or antique shops,” says David, who adds, perhaps a touch too modestly, “Nothing in this house is of value.”

Cherchez le Château

One arrives at Château d’Autet after a good hour’s drive from either Avignon, to the west, or Aix-en-Provence, to the south, traveling over increasingly narrow, winding, unmarked back roads, none of which can be found on G.P.S. (This didn’t stop a French-magazine photographer from snapping Kate Middleton with a telephoto lens as she sunbathed topless when she and Prince William stayed there in 2012.) The faithfully restored three-story hunting lodge has stone walls washed in light-ocher plaster and shutters painted the pale blue characteristic of the region. Hydrangeas, roses, geraniums, and petunias—all white—in terra-cotta pots line the steps to the front door, which is surrounded by a thick jasmine vine, its sweet fragrance blending with that of the tall pines, cedars, and oaks that shade the grounds. There are also olive, fig, and walnut trees, which provide fresh repast for the family’s table.

The original interior has been left largely intact, starting from the capacious center hall, where an old farmer’s table is piled with histories, guidebooks, maps of the region, and family memorabilia, including an antique Rolleiflex camera. A wide stone staircase leads to the master bedroom suite and two guest bedrooms on the second floor, all done up in old-fashioned patterned wallpapers and matching curtains, bedspreads, and club chairs. I was assigned to the coral-and-cream guest room, with a huge, drafty bathroom down six steps and an adjacent shower room up another six. Both were decorated with political cartoons from the 1960s poking fun at Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon as royal rebels; the funniest depicts the couple being presented at court in full black leather motorcycle gear. The lavender soap, shampoo, bath salts, cologne, and scented candles were all from Serena Linley Provence, the Knightsbridge shop Serena opened in 2010 and closed four years later.

The faded-yellow sitting room off the front hall, where tea is taken on cool afternoons, has a cozy, almost fusty air about it, and every object in it seems to have a family connection. Snowdon’s uncle Oliver Messel, the eminent set-and-costume designer, painted the portrait of his mother, Maud, the daughter of the famous Punch-magazine illustrator Linley Sambourne, and another of a dancer from Barbados, where Messel’s house was considered the most beautiful on the island. There’s also a small marble bust of Messel as a boy, of which David says, “Literally, my father said, ‘You could have that.’ I don’t know who it’s by. And these are just old set designs. They’re canvas. Again, no value.” The neoclassical alabaster-and-gold clock standing on the mantelpiece, David recalls, “I bought in bits and pieces in a junk shop next to my father’s house. It’s worth a hundred quid or something.” The painting of a blue wheelbarrow and the drawing of the Deux Chevaux next to the clock were done by David’s sister Sarah. Books are everywhere, as they are in all the rooms, on shelves, tables, chairs, and the floor. Among them: Courtiers: The Secret History of Kensington Palace; Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air; 1000 Years of Annoying the French.

The boxy stone guesthouse, built in the 1960s, is set into a hillside behind the main house. Though it is decorated in a mostly modern style, with clean white walls and sisal carpets, Oliver Messel’s tastefully rococo presence is felt here too. David inherited the 19th-century Italian commode and inlaid-marble side table in the living room from his great-uncle, and the painted chest of drawers and mirror in one of the three bedrooms came from the Barbados house. There are also some pieces designed by David, including a Chippendale-inspired oak breakfront and a glass-top trestle table, with six Cecil Beaton drawings hanging above it. David is most proud of what he calls “my red-and-yellow desk,” which he made at Bedales from a single piece of plywood, with an attached blotter and letter rack that are inlaid with geometric designs in gold and amber chips of wood. Friends who are assigned this guest room will find a punctuation-light note on the desktop:

“Dear Guest, I would really appreciate that as this was the first piece of furniture I made aged 14 that you dont put cold beers on the top—it leaves nasty ring marks. Thank you, David Linley.”

“After the desk I made a box,” David tells me. “It got quite complicated—secret mitered dovetail joints inside that you can’t see and all that sort of thing. Anyway, I made it, and my teacher was very pleased by the result. So I thought I’d give it to my grandmother, because she always encouraged my sister and me. And she said, ‘Oh, it’s lovely, darling. Did you make that?’ I said, ‘Yes I did.’ And I then went to lunch at Clarence House, quite a sort of big grand lunch, after the Trooping the Colour, and everyone was in tunics and things. And it came around as the cigar box after lunch. And it had Turkish cigarettes on one side and cigars on the other. I just thought it was such a lovely thing she did. She was actually not offering people cigars. She was showing my work in a very subtle way.”

Rooms with a View

David and Serena only recently finished reconfiguring and restoring the original farmhouse, which dates from the 18th century and is situated a few hundred yards downhill from the main house. The farmhouse has two additional guest rooms. A covered portico runs the length of the pool, sparely decorated with antique Provençal pitchforks and African baskets, as well as tables and chairs from the Ikea outpost in Marseille.

They bought the property in 1998, reportedly for $620,000, after selling Princess Margaret’s house on Mustique, Les Jolies Eaux, which was designed by Messel, for a reported $1.9 million; David’s mother had given it to him a few years earlier. They apparently spent most of the difference on bringing the house up to snuff, adding central heating as well as new wiring, plumbing, and gutters. While David dealt with the local contractor, Serena got to work on the long-neglected garden. “It really was a semi-ruin when they got it,” says longtime family friend (and Vanity Fair contributing editor) Reinaldo Herrera. “They’ve been improving it ever since.”

David and Serena decided they wanted a house in the Luberon after Serena met Peter Mayle at a lunch, and he introduced them to a real-estate agent who knew of a house for sale that fit their requirements for a retreat far off the beaten path but not too high up in the hills (where it can be chilly even in the warm months). Château d’Autet was the only place they looked at, but it took a year and a half to close because it was jointly owned by 14 members of the same family. For David and Serena, the old hunting lodge was the perfect holiday house, not as grand as its name makes it sound, but spacious, cozy, and private. What’s more, the Luberon’s hazy summer days reminded Serena of County Limerick, in the West of Ireland, where she was born and spent much of her childhood.

Alas, the press-shy Serena was off to Seville with Margarita on a “mother-daughter shopping trip,” as her husband put it, during my visit to Château d’Autet. The perfect host, he was waiting at the front door when I arrived, shortly before lunchtime on a day when the famous mistral wind was blowing hard. He was casually dressed in a white linen shirt (“my oldest, most favorite shirt”) from Bamford’s men’s line, bright-blue Loro Piana linen pants, and dark-blue Tod’s driving shoes. His black titanium Rolex watch was customized by his good friend George Bamford, the founder of Bamford Watch Department. David and his family are very close to the Bamfords and have a cottage at Daylesford, the Gloucestershire estate of George’s parents, billionaire construction-equipment magnate Lord Anthony Bamford and organic-farming pioneer Lady Carole.

I asked him about the gold signet ring and small gold cross on a thin gold chain around his neck, both of which he always wears. “That’s my wedding ring,” he explained. “Designed by my father, it’s made from gold mined in Wales, because of our Welsh heritage. And then it’s my father’s crest on the flat surface. It’s a stag. He gave it to me on my wedding day, in 1993, when I married Serena.” The cross, David told me, was made by John Donald, Princess Margaret’s longtime favorite London jeweler. “I’ve always had it, ever since I was confirmed, when I was 14. In fact, I’ve just given the children an exact replica of it.”

Business and Leisure

David’s son, Charles, in his final year at Eton, joins us for lunch on the terrace in front of the house, along with Carmel Allen, the creative director of Linley. The meal, prepared by David’s friend the Venetian chef Enrico Fantasia, is a veritable Mediterranean feast: grilled sardines; Provençal sausages; Serrano ham with fresh mozzarella; purple, orange, and yellow beets; red and green tomatoes; green salad with regional cheeses; and homemade vanilla and strawberry ice cream, all washed down by the local organic rosé Domaine Saint André de Figuière.

“We have so much going on in London around the 30th anniversary of Linley,” announced Allen, steering the conversation toward business. “We’re refurbishing, repackaging, rebranding.”

“Renewing,” adds David.

He started his first business, simply called David Linley, at age 21, in 1982, after two years at Parnham House School for Craftsmen in Wood, in Dorset, studying under the renowned furniture designer John Makepeace. Three years later, he opened David Linley Furniture Limited on the King’s Road in Chelsea, with his old school friend Matthew Rice.

“I remember my mother came to my first shop,” he continues. “And I went downstairs, and there was my mother sitting on the floor, screwing a screw into the back of a mirror. She was greatly enthusiastic.” David was also always very close to the Queen Mother. “I went to church with my grandmother every Sunday,” he recalls. “I think she gave all of her grandchildren a work ethic and [a belief in] loyalty to friends. She came to all my workshops and to all my schools. She came to the shop. She said, ‘I hear that you’ve made a rather good cabinet.’ And that was at age 93. The last time she came she was 98, to see the things.” (The Queen Mother died in 2002, at age 101.)

Suites Smell of Success

By then, David’s business had relocated to a much larger space, on Pimlico Road, and its name had been changed twice, first to David Linley & Company, then to just plain Linley (like Hermès or Bulgari). It had also amassed an impressive list of clients over the years, ranging from Sir Elton John to Anouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg. Though, like most purveyors of luxury goods and services, David refuses to name clients unless they out themselves, he is known to have furnished yachts—a specialty of the company—for Valentino as well as the Lebanese-Saudi socialite Mouna Ayoub. He’s also created suites in Claridge’s, the posh hotel in Mayfair, and made boardroom tables for Vanity Fair and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The latter table, which seats 48, was commissioned in the late 1980s by interior decorator Mark Hampton. “It’s 66 feet long,” notes David. “So lots of turned legs underneath. We came up with the idea that the base would be a colonnade.” Once again, at a luncheon in her honor hosted by the museum’s then vice president, Ashton Hawkins, Princess Margaret was found on the floor, having crawled underneath the table to admire her son’s design.

In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the company’s revenues declined precipitously, and it was bailed out by Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev, nicknamed the Cashier to the Kremlin, who took a seat on the board. In 2010, Pugachev’s Mezhprombank was liquidated and the authorities in Moscow demanded immediate repayment of the $650,000 loan it had made to Linley. David then sold 60 percent of his company to British yacht broker James Edmiston for a $6.5 million cash infusion, and Edmiston became C.E.O. of David Linley Holdings. Three years later, Edmiston sold 51 percent of the company to Nazir Razak, a Malaysian banking tycoon, and David Chua, the former president of the Genting Hong Kong leisure empire. Edmiston kept a small stake, while 40 percent was kept by David, who has remained chairman throughout these changes.

Linley now seems back on track. Last September it unveiled its reincarnated Pimlico Road store, which has a clean, modern look inspired by Lord Snowdon’s photography studio in Kensington Palace. Replacing the room sets is a “guest gallery,” for exhibitions of visiting designers’ work. There’s a downstairs “club room,” where literary readings and wine tastings take place. The talk of the opening was a monumental porcelain sculpture by Felicity Aylieff, which stood 15 feet high in the double-height atrium at the heart of the space. “We do Maximalist Minimalism,” cracks David, who seems to see himself more as curator than creator at this stage in his career.

“I’m not a maker now,” he says. “I can’t be. You need a long, long time to do something that’s really good. I think it’s dishonest in an interview to say, ‘I make.’ I’m much more comfortable saying what I actually do on a day-to-day basis. I’m sort of the enabler. I’ll look at a space and I’ll put furniture ideas in it. But I very much try to encourage the next generation of designers to come through. That I like doing. That’s exciting. What I’ve tried to engender in the Linley design team is to always be curious. We’re endlessly trying new materials, getting new people to come in, finding people who are doing different things—let’s get a traditional person to make something in a very avant-garde way. Which is quite fun.”

The newly minted Earl of Snowdon has a full plate, in any case. In addition to stirring up business for Christie’s as honorary chairman for Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and India, he serves as vice patron of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust. “One of the great problems is that young people tend to give up just at the time when they’ve learned their skills, because they can’t afford to carry on,” he says, elaborating on the charity’s mission. “So we help and encourage them, and also work to make craftsmanship more socially worthwhile. There’s a sort of stigma that it’s much better to be a banker or a lawyer. And if you’re not, if you’re a craftsman, how ghastly! And it’s very wide-ranging—it doesn’t just concentrate on furniture-makers. It’s shoemakers, saddlers, sculptors, thatchers, goldsmiths. They have people hanging from helicopters restoring the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. It was set up in my grandmother’s 90th year, and she made sure it got off to a sound start. And on the Queen’s 90th birthday, she became the trust’s first patron. So it’s a very nice, continuous story.”

And then we are off on a walk through what is called the garigue—the dry, rocky landscape of southern France, with its gnarled old oaks, scrawny pines, prickly purple thistles, and rambling stone walls that divided the small landholdings of long-ago farmers and that kept their sheep, pigs, and goats from escaping. David is wearing a royal-blue Bamford shirt today, with a Loro Piana Windbreaker, khakis, and shoes. As we climb over low electrified fences, I ask if they’re meant to keep out deer. “Wild boar,” he says. “They’re lovely, but they have a snout that literally just drives a furrow through your best garden.”