Isn't That Rich?: Life Among the 1 Percent Read online

  “Let’s say a restricted private club that allows one spouse to join and not the other. What’s elegant about that?”

  “Do you think billionaires are behaving badly?”

  “Some behave poorly, and some, like our mayor, are quite hardworking and understated given his level of wealth. Then again, there’s a certain mean-spiritedness to how old money views the new wealth.”

  “Such as?”

  “The restrictive nature of certain clubs, co-ops, institutions are meant to keep certain people out. Now, there are equally prestigious options, and they’re no longer the only game in town, which is about time. The co-op owners also get crazy knowing the new buildings are trading at huge premiums. It’s actually great payback, literally. That’s why I live in a townhouse. I have no patience for all this nonsense.”

  “Do you think it’s particular to New York?”

  “The international billionaires are coming here, because it’s the safest and best place to be—an expensive insurance policy. What’s playing out in New York is playing out on a national level. You have one mayoral candidate describing New York as a ‘tale of two cities’ and the mayor welcoming fellow billionaires to New York because they’re good for the economy and tax burden. They both have a point.”

  “So you don’t feel badly about all your hundies and billions?” I joked.

  “I’ve worked hard for it all. Either we’re capitalists or socialists! That’s the problem today—the conflict, the indecision. … You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Well, as long as you’re happy,” I said.

  “It all goes back to what I think Plato said.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In order to be truly happy, you have to surround yourself with people less successful than yourself,” he said, walking down the steps to a waiting town car.

  “So do you practice what you preach?”

  “Of course. Why do you think I’m spending time with you?” he joked in a nonjoking fashion, then slid in the backseat before the car sped away.

  As I walked out of the park down Fifth Avenue, I marveled at the facade of the Metropolitan, as I always do, and thought there’s nothing better than living in New York. But it just may be time to add a few new friends to the list.

  2. THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  The Old Guard Courts the New Guard Because Cash Is King

  IT MIGHT BE IRONIC that I happen to be sitting in Madrid in what is widely regarded as the world’s oldest restaurant (drinking Rosado and sampling phallic white asparagus) writing about the new guard …

  Botín (est. 1725), which Hemingway proclaimed in The Sun Also Rises as one of the best restaurants in the world, is all about the old and authentic, a warren of beamed ceilings and leaded glass. In Europe, the older institutions usually occupy the best locations. I view it as embracing the old and discovered, versus the new world—which celebrates the new, trendy, and undiscovered.

  Two days before I had boarded the luxurious Iberia flight at Kennedy, I attended a house party on the East End. Best Man and his wife, whom we are so close with I have anointed her “Second Wife,” were hosting an eclectic crowd at their architecturally significant home. The weekend proved to be a social workout, cramming as many as eight Fourth of July parties into just two days. As I was getting “my morning hangover coffee” at the Sagg Store, I ran into the scion of one of the bloodiest of blue-blooded families, which now seem to be ever increasingly in the minority.

  “Happy Fourth, Richard,” he said, his jaw so locked I wondered how words actually emanated. “How is your weekend?”

  I revealed my social hangover and described the seaside party I’d attended at the home of one of New York’s last great bachelors, where the party and favors never seem to end.

  “Oh, you must take me one day,” he pleaded. “I’d love to get on his list.”

  “List?” I said somewhat shocked. “I never took you for a social animal, James (not his real name).” In fact, I hardly ever thought he emerged from the grounds of his rambling but now seedy family compound and his fortresslike golf club that still somehow manages to exclude.

  “I need to start hanging out with people who have real money,” he opined.

  “Real money as opposed to fake?” I asked.

  “Look, you know the deal. Most of my friends are living on fumes,” he said wearily. “It’s less fun than it used to be.”

  After the lingering financial crisis, a sliver of rich have gotten richer, but a global cash crunch has emerged, not entirely causing a depression but, shall we say, an international malaise. The formerly well-to-do are making adjustments in order to preserve their once exuberant lifestyle. Some, in search of ready cash for businesses, charities, clubs, private schools, or their own social endeavors, have had to make allowances and become, shall we say, more flexible. Faced with conundrums and hard choices, old money now courts new money, and cash is King. And Queen.

  Back from a beach walk, I happened upon four long, tanned legs interlocked like puzzle pieces on a chaise. International Playboy Posse (IPP) was in town from London with his twenty-one-year-old Russian model/actress girlfriend. Once settled in and dressed for dinner, we all convened on the terrace. IPP (who you get if you put Mick Jagger, Peter O’Toole, and a billionaire in a blender) and I shared a glass of rosé and immediately agreed on my theory that the new money, which was once shunned and mocked, is now being actively courted by old money.

  “In London society, the aristocracy is being replaced by a fast European crowd that is defined by its fabulousness.” He said this with a feline elegance you don’t usually see in a man’s man delivery.

  “How does that work?” I asked, refilling his glass with some Domaine Ott to “lubricate” the conversation and hopefully pry any further valuable gems loose.

  He shrugged. “Someone rich comes to town, makes a splash, and if they’re known as having real money, there’s interest and instant entrée. The old families are now reliant on these new people for shoots on their estates and such. Money can now buy you a ticket into a place like London. It wasn’t always the case.”

  “Well, if it’s bad in London, you should see what passes for good breeding in New York,” I said with a laugh. I read a quote from an article about a new hot spot where someone actually said they liked it because it was “ pretentious.”

  “Yes, you have these garish reality shows here and such. It’s all so tawdry really. Then again, everyone likes a good female catfight, don’t they, even in London.”

  “Does it go beyond London?”

  “Absolutely,” he declared in his punctuated accent. “We keep a boat in the South of France and it’s down there for the Monaco Grand Prix, which is really the start of the social season since it’s in May.”

  “That sounds fairly marvelous,” I said, now understanding the length of his so-called boat.

  “Yes. Then again, you see crowds of awful people arriving because they think that the glamorous world of Monaco will somehow rub off on them.”

  “Do people cater to you because you have big toys?”

  “Yes.” He laughed amiably. “Everyone likes the royal treatment, even the royals.” He extended a long tailored arm to his model/actress girlfriend—“Shall we?”—indicating that he was ready to go to the next party and that we should all follow his playboy lead, which I was inclined to do.

  “The biggest issue today is cash flow,” a Californian businessman in Madrid declared over the extensive and sumptuous buffet breakfast at the Villa Magna. Although it is hot and sticky in July in Spain, the businessmen were all turned out in navy serge suits.

  “It’s one of the reasons I sold my business to the private equity fund.” He had the Madrileños nodding at hello. “I needed the backup.”

  “We all need cash,” they agreed. “It’s a global issue.”

  Since I
was traveling alone, I had been seated directly in earshot of a business meeting over steaming espresso. With his booming American voice and Texan business partner, the man speaking seemed to be wooing the old guard with tales of available cash and credit. Clearly, with Spain’s notorious unemployment and economy, the Americans with checkbooks were in town.

  “You must come to my club,” an elegant Madrileño offered in his heavy accent, swooning at the word cash. “You must come. It is ze best private club in Madrid.”

  “My son is doing an exchange program in September,” the Californian said.

  “He must come and see me,” the Spanish grandee said. “We will take very good care of him.”

  “Does your company ever do internships?” he inquired bluntly. “I mean if we do business together?”

  “More coffee?” the waitress asked me suddenly, interrupting my eavesdropping reverie.

  I remembered a recent conversation in New York. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s a cliché that the newly rich have such bad manners, but generalities are a bit unfair,” Our Lady of the East River declared over anemic petite hors d’oeuvres at one of the few Manhattan private clubs that still discourages press mentions. We both picked up a slightly limp puff pastry filled with some overly mayonnaised concoction. “Truly, one has to wear earplugs, they have such loud voices,” she said, delivering the searing indictment.

  I really couldn’t fault Our Lady, who regularly declares that anyone over a certain age should be able to say what they want—and she clearly does. Our Lady (my friend’s great-aunt), who does a great deal of fund-raising for a select group of worthy charities, often has to interact with the new money types for her philanthropic efforts. “As we all know,” Our Lady illuminated the conversation, “a coveted slot as a cochair or a sizable donation ensures the couple’s name appearing on the host committee engraved invitation. Hosting an event also guarantees table sales for the events and is a draw for people who like seeing their names in full view with more established names.” Her clear blue eyes and forthright manner made it hard to argue with her point of view. (Why is it that woman of this stock all start to look like George Washington at a certain age?)

  “Now it would also be unfair to say that all my new friends act this way,” she offered. “There are some who are elegant and donate anonymously. Most are very generous. I actually like a few of them but I really draw the line at dinner.” She lamented, “They shout so much and, well, the way they talk to the waitstaff! It’s really too much for me.” She leaned in. “So my trick is that if I have to go with a big donor, I go to loud restaurants”—she mentioned a few—“so as not to be embarrassed.”

  After so many summers in Italy where the new money tourists consistently raise the decibel level and eyebrows of fellow European diners, it was hard not to see her point. Many American travelers do have a tendency to shout and dominate low-ceilinged restaurants, and I can attest to not wanting to be associated with the shrill, not to mention their unattended, undisciplined, and ill-behaved progeny.

  “That said, you do take in quite a substantial amount of money for your charities from your new friends,” I had to counter.

  “My dear, the new people are the only ones who actually donate. My group is lucky to dust off the old tux. Most of these people are first-generation success stories and they do want to give back. It’s very admirable. I have great respect and like many of them a great deal.”

  “So you would have them over?”

  “Of course, dear. They’re all welcome to [her East River Place abode]. Honestly, I’d rather have them at the apartment; I just can’t abide a tête-à-tête at [two discreet old-school restaurants where you can hear the napkin drop].

  “I even like some of those wives of theirs. They all have such perfect teeth. Although they tend to drench themselves in parfum … there’s such a thing as moderation,” she implored. “It’s just I can’t have people virtually shouting when I am eating. It’s not good for the digestion. And the gargantuan portions they order. Why, it’s obscene. And if I hear one more person say ‘you don’t know who I am’ when they get the wrong table, I am ready to return the check.”

  And, with that, Our Lady closed the conversation.

  “They should be lucky to have me,” Handsome Harry declared at the plush bar of the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona. I had run into HH, or as some people refer to him, Cash and Charry. As we caught up over drinks and salted snacks, Cash and Charry revealed he had just gained admittance to one of the most prestigious golf clubs back home in the US of A and notably one of the hardest membership lists to crack. The fact that he was not only well turned out, a scratch golfer, and had sold his tech business for mucho dinero didn’t hurt his chances.

  “Not that I’m not excited, but many of the members couldn’t afford to join the clubs they belong to or the co-ops they live in. Regardless of what they say, membership to some of the clubs is dwindling and not everyone can afford the minimum or the assessments, so they need some new blood.” He shrugged. “You know, people like me to pay the bills. I know the score,” he admitted, running his fingers through his thick, glossy hair.

  “They’re all awful snobs, and every five minutes they remind me that their fathers or grandfathers were members. Then I know they’ll tap me when it comes time for the new roof.”

  “Well, that’s a very honest appraisal, Harry,” I said, clinking glasses of sherry blanco.

  “I mean, the food and facilities are better at your club, but”—he shrugged again—“everyone wants to belong to somewhere their friends couldn’t get in. It’s great for business. Everyone wants to get invited to [legendary club]. You must come.”

  “I’ve played there before. It’s really wonderful, although the food is fairly inedible. They do have a very well-stocked wine cellar, though,” I happily admitted.

  “Well, you know that’s what’s important: the liquor.”

  “So where are you off to after Barcelona?” I inquired.

  “Well, Jasmine (HH’s model girlfriend) and I are meeting the boat we rented and then we go to Saint-Tropez and then down to Monaco. Jasmine has never been before. I love Saint-Tropez, but she insisted she wants to go to Monte Carlo. You know, this is her first trip to Europe and she wants to go to all the best places.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “And of course, I had to buy her a whole set of luggage before she came. We can’t go to Monaco with old luggage.”

  “Louis Vuitton?”

  “How did you know? It’s the best.”

  “And when do you go back to the States?”

  “Well, we’ll be back before Labor Day. I’m throwing a fund-raiser at my Hamptons house for some charity. You and your wife should come.”

  “What charity?” I asked.

  “I’ll have to ask Jasmine. It’s her gig. She wanted to be cochair, and she gets to wear a long dress and gets her name on the invitation. You know how women are. She wants to do good and get her photo in [x magazine].”

  “She sounds determined.”

  “Once the society girls get to know her, they’ll love her. Although some are jealous because she looks so HOT in Chanel.”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking of Jasmine having dinner with Our Lady and what that conversation would be like. … “Well, so glad to see you, Harry. I’m glad to hear things are going so well for you. Enjoy Monte Carlo.”

  “You know what I always say, Richard. With money you get honey.”

  After Spain, Capri sparkled and beckoned like a contessa’s antique cabochon emerald, the kind I sometimes see nestled into a dowager’s fading bosom along the Via Camerelle.

  It’s not untrue that I prefer risotto to paella, so being back on Tiberius’s isle always makes my summer. Capri, though, as a summer playground attracts variety, and within minutes of arriving and walking through the piazza I ran into no fewer than five couples
in various states of bathing and shopping attire. The boating crowd varies a bit from the hotel crowd, and I observed a few odd pairings and groups (the poor and the titled and the rich and the vulgar). I mentioned this to a friend in the boating circle when I observed a couple whose yacht was the size of a cruise ship and stocked with a vast array of guests, some it seemed they hardly knew.

  “That’s because they have a few professional guests on board for entertainment,” he said, window-shopping at the Tod’s store for driving shoes.

  “What do you mean by professional?”

  “Oh, come now, Richard. You know the score. So-and-so provides the Big Boat and then they invite an assorted group of ‘names’ who are happy to freeload and provide entertainment and give the group a bit of polish. Why in the world would Gunther and Cosima Von Snap (not their real identities) mix with that horrid group. All the truly elegant people are on sailboats anyway.” He turned up his nose.

  “Why do they go?” I said, still not fully understanding.

  “They get a free vacation. They’re fed, bed, and flown because they have the name, but they don’t have a POT. It’s the story as old as time.”

  “Whose story?” I asked naively.

  “Listen, some of these old trust-fund babies live like pensioners. Then they meet the gravy train and once again, it’s flying private and big boats and trips to St. Barths. They’re back in the high life on someone else’s dime.”

  “Isn’t that a great deal of work?”

  “Not if the only place you can go for the summer is a public beach.”

  “And do they get spending money too?” I marveled.

  “Listen, I will not say who, but I actually saw one husband reaching into his pocket, pulling out a roll of bills big enough to choke a horse, and peeling off fifties to give to not one but two or three wives … as if the women were all on the payroll.”

  “And what does he get in return?” I asked.

  “The pleasure of their company,” he said as he walked into the shoe store. “Like that article you wrote on paid friends.”