He cuts a slightly shambolic figure. The old tweed jacket, or old-fashioned, good quality overcoat, and the perpetual expression of good humoured perplexity, make millionaire Jeremy Mogford seem an unlikely agent of change in this ancient city of dreaming spires.

Yet he is an artist in his own way. He has probably done more than anyone else to change Oxford, adapt it to the way we live now, than anyone else.

He is one of those lucky people who has found out what he enjoys doing and discovered that the world at large is happy to pay him extremely well indeed for doing it. He is in the news these days as being the man responsible for the £3m transmogrification of the old Barclays Bank, on Oxford's High Street, into Oxford's first city-centre luxury hotel to open here for 135 years.

Showing guests around the 44 bedroom part-18th century, part-medieval hotel, finds Mr Mogford, 52, in his element; for what he enjoys doing most is adapting old buildings to modern use. He does it so well that he has so far won two awards from the Oxford Preservation Trust. Turning the bank into a hotel presented Mr Mogford with some curious problems, not least marrying the up the low ceilinged Elizabethan half of the hotel with the 18th Century half without destroying the essential character of either. He employed French interior designer Gladys Wagner to produce a look of simple, understated elegance in the bedrooms, using soft colours, silks, linen, and suede.

He reckons that the hotel's main attraction is its position, overlooking the very heart of Oxford: the Bodleian, All Souls, the Radcliffe Camera.

For about 100 years this view was seen only by bank workers, now it is all spread out at the feet of guests lucky enough to find a room here, or of people who take a walk up to the roof where a special platform has been constructed to see the city from above.

His first venture into the world of catering, after graduating from Business Studies and Hotel and Catering at Surrey University, occurred in 1973 when he invested £10,000 (£2,500 borrowed from his father) into the first Brown's Restaurant in Brighton. He built the chain up to seven restaurants with turnover of £15m before selling out to Bass three years ago for £35m. He says: "Luckily doing what I like, providing an atmosphere that I would like, comes first. The money follows and is a measure of how much others like what I like."

After selling Browns he moved into the hotel business and bought up the Old Parsonage Hotel.

He is also the owner of Gee's Restaurant, housed in what older residents of Oxford will remember as the greenhouse of a very good florist on the Banbury Road.

He is also involved in a TV production company, which somehow comes as no surprise.

He says: "There is so much showmanship in creating restaurants. Take the Old Bank for example, we persuaded the planners to allow us to lower the windows by one pane. We did this to make the place less bank-like and austere. Friendly rather than daunting. More relevant to its modern use." He adds: "My buildings are not nostalgic trips. They are, and I hope this doesn't sound affected, works of art.

"I want to provide the buzz, lighting, different height ceilings, to make people feel good."

Art is apparent in all he does.

He scours art colleges for modern pictures that he likes. Examples may be seen the moment you step into the uncluttered space of the new Quod restaurant, in the old banking hall of what was once Barclay's.

He says: "I chose figurative paintings as I don't think people want abstract pictures in a restaurant like this." Artistry is also apparent in the garden of his home, Rofford Manor, in south Oxfordshire where he lives with his wife Hilary. Here the couple have turned the two-and-a-half acre garden into a clever mixture of edible produce and floral beauty. They were able to design it exactly as they wished when they moved to Rofford 17 years ago since it was so overgrown that you could hardly see the house.

Now it abounds with topiary, a white rose garden, and an orchard containing several varieties of apples, pears, and plums.

Here perhaps he is trying to do something similar to what he did at Brown's. He says: "I think that my ideas at Brown's have stood the test of time and the look may last for 100 years. It is a timeless look in which people feel comfortable.

"Regardless of how the world changes, people do feel comfortable in the Browns restaurants and I think Bass are committed to keeping the look". And what is the secret of his commercial success? He sees which way the wind is blowing in the modern world. Take the Old Bank for example: with increasing technology, banks need fewer branches but people, with more leisure, need more hotels. Obvious really.

Story date: Tuesday 14 December

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.