Guy Bignell of Griffin & Howe settles into Taylors for his next chapter.
The irony of walking into the understated study of a man who once led one of the world’s premier gun makers and dealers is the simple fact that there are no guns—only a collection of fly rods hanging above the credenza.
But spend a few minutes with Guy Bignell, former president and CEO of the legendary Griffin & Howe, and you’ll quickly become comfortable with understatements.
Like the fact that Bignell spent Christmas with a duke and duchess, shooting in England, yet won’t name them. Nor will he name the many heads of state, CEOs, celebrities, and royals he’s called clients—and friends—through the years.
“I’ve got 9,000 names and mobile numbers in that database there,” he says, gesturing to his desktop computer. “But if I were ever to take advantage of that, I’d be cut off immediately.”
It’s a discipline, of sorts, this commitment to discretion. It’s also the byproduct of decades spent catering to people willing and able to pay low- to mid-six figures for shotguns and rifles that are as much works of art as they are firearms.
Bignell and his wife, Sharilynne, relocated to the Upstate from Connecticut in late 2021. He says after years of leading Griffin & Howe in New England, it was time to swap one title for another. Now Griffin & Howe’s “Ambassador to the Lowcountry,” Bignell is leading the company’s effort to build a presence in the South.
“As we have lacked a presence in the Southern states, I felt I could fill the void by bringing my sporting lifestyle, experience, and sporting firearms knowledge to the sportsmen and sportswomen of the South,” he says.
The Bignells settled on Taylors, South Carolina, because it checked two key boxes: views of the Blue Ridge and quick access to Greenville’s world-class healthcare systems.
“I like the area. It’s a little bit like driving through Kent and Sussex in England,” he says. “It’s an old Southern feel with a bit of old English feel mixed in.”
Yes, this man—sitting in his understated study and home in an unassuming subdivision in the Blue Ridge foothills—is British.
And he’s lived a life few of his new neighbors could imagine.
“I’ve lived the life of a billionaire without having to pay for it,” he jokes.
The Sporting Life
Born in 1952 in Keston Village, an ancient community on the outskirts of London, Bignell remembers his first experience afield.
“I was six years old and had come home from boarding school and was staying with my grandparents in Hampshire,” he remembers. “My grandfather told his gamekeeper, ‘Take the boy out with the .410 and don’t bring him back until he’s shot a rabbit and a pigeon.’”
He proved a natural wing shot but the rabbit proved harder. “I shot the pigeon. The gamekeeper shot the rabbit.”
Thus began Bignell’s rite of passage into sporting life.
“A shoot in England consists of 40 or 50 people who are laying on this presentation for eight guns—eight people. It’s quite a performance. It’s rather like organizing a play in a theater. Everything must be just right. The timing must be right.”
By 13, he was standing with the head gamekeeper during his grandfather’s shoots. A few years later, he was loading his grandfather’s shotguns for him. Finally, one day, the guns were passed to him.
“I was blessed to be in a world where I could enjoy the sporting lifestyle,” he says. “Of which I’ve been able to do ever since.”
A Second Career for Guy Bignell
In a red brick building at the corner of Tavern and Broad streets in Lower Manhattan is the exclusive Angler’s Club of New York. It was there in the mid-1990s that a conversation altered the trajectory of Bignell’s life.
“I was in there and was talking to a chap I’d known for five or ten years—Peter Kellogg—we were chatting in the library in the days when you could have a cigar,” he remembers.
Though he didn’t know it, Bignell, who’d only recently retired from a successful textile career, was firmly in Kellogg’s sights to run Griffin & Howe, which Kellogg had recently bought. Bignell had been a Griffin & Howe client.
“Kellogg said, ‘I’ve invested a stupid amount of money in this gun company that won’t make any money at all, but it will be fun. And I’ve bought this 500 acres in New Jersey where we might put a shooting school,’” Bignell recalls.
“I didn’t want to go back to work again,” Bignell says. But he did.
Bignell joined Griffin & Howe as managing partner in 1997, was elevated to president a few years later, and within a few years was president and CEO.
While cherishing the many friendships forged through the years with such an exclusive clientele, Bignell freely admits that even the jet-setting life can wear thin: a key reason he turned over the reins in 2018.
“You do get fed up with Petrus and Moet Chandon and foie gras after a while,” he says. “To sit at home in one’s ‘muumuu’ watching an action movie with a glass of cold milk and a cheese and tomato sandwich is absolute heaven.”
But it has all led to a deep appreciation, Bignell says, a sense of overwhelming gratitude for a life well-lived.
“That’s what the hunting, fishing, outdoor lifestyle teaches you—it’s all very fragile. We must leave it better than we found it.”
Photography by Will Crooks.
