LADY Phylis Cahn lay back in her sumptuous bed, with its carved frame and painted canopy, and tried to take in the grandeur of her new home.

A clerk's daughter from Bournemouth, she had grown used to the good life following her marriage to Nottingham businessman Julien Cahn, but when she awoke on an April morning in 1929 she was surrounded by breathtaking opulence.

Cahn, head of the flourishing Nottingham Furnishing Company, had swapped their relatively modest Papplewick Grange home with its eight bedrooms and five bathrooms for something much more grand and imposing.

Cahn paid £70,000 for the 3,000-acre pile that was Stanford Hall, boasting 35 bedrooms.

Today, inflation has taken that purchase price to £3.25 million.

But before the Cahns, and their three children, moved in he handed a firm of interior decorators another £100,000 (£4 million) to gut the place and turn it into a palace – with the master bedroom top of the list.

As her maid Alice drew back the long blue silver and silk curtains, Phyllis ran her eyes over the antique French furniture, white marble hearth and crystal chandelier.

That room alone cost Cahn £160,000 at today's prices.

It was like a scene from Downton Abbey but this was not the figment of a writer's imagination, this was life at the very top of the social ladder.

It is described, in vivid and fascinating detail, by Cahn's granddaughter Miranda Rijks in her aptly titled biography The Eccentric Entrepreneur, which has just been published in paperback.

It charts the rise of Cahn, the son of a Jewish greengrocer who came to Nottingham in 1885 and established the Nottingham Furnishing Company.

Young Julien inherited his father's business acumen to build a furniture store empire which brought him immense riches, enabling him to indulge his passion for cricket, hunting and philanthropy.

He was also an incorrigible social climber and the purchase of Stanford Hall, near Loughborough, followed soon after by his purchase of a baronetcy, enabled him to live like the lord he had become.

And to ease his days at his country home, he surrounded himself with a small army of servants, more than 60 in total – 32 working in the house, the rest in the grounds, stables or chauffeurs. "All to maintain a family of five!" comments his granddaughter.

For more than 15 years Sir Julien, Phyllis and their three children Patience, Albert and Richard, made Stanford one of the great country houses with its fabulous art collection, a venue for lavish balls, cricket matches and dinner parties which were the envy of 1930s society.

And below stairs, his servants toiled around the clock, attending to every whim of their eccentric master.

But it all came to an end on September 26, 1944, when Sir Julien, who had sold his business to Great Universal Stores two years earlier, died from a massive heart attack while sitting at his desk.

At the age of 48, Phyllis was a widow, facing an uncertain future.

"Using his wealth, connections and nous, Cahn had managed to buffer those closest to him from the harshest effects of the war,'' writes Miranda.

''His demise brought an immediate end to such comfort.

"They lost everything. Death duties took 90p in the £,'' she added.

''My grandmother was forced to sell everything off ... and that was when the vultures descended." In 1945, the Co-operative Society bought Stanford Hall for £54,000, less than half the value of Sir Julien's purchase price.

"Over the years, the few items of value were gradually sold off," says Miranda.

She said that various auctions rarely realised the true worth of Sir Julien's treasures, while some items simply disappeared.

Lady Phyllis moved to a more modest house in Sussex, taking her friend Waity, who had been the children's governess, footman Arthur Harrup and cook Mrs Bentley with her.

They were all that was left of the fabulous days at Stanford Hall.

The Eccentric Entrepreneur is published by The History Press, priced £12.99.