Illustration by Ryan Greis
[Sidebar to "Power '08"]
F. Scott Fitzgerald only got it half right.
Yes, the very rich are different from you and me, but they also differ dramatically from one another.
No one can attest to this better than the people manning the kitchens, tending to the heirs, designing the homes, grooming the lawns, fixing the flowers, driving the cars, coiffing the dos and walking the dogs of those people who could legitimately list power in their portfolio of assets.
For starters, they say, the moneyed come in vintages—old, freshly minted and somewhat endangered.
“The old money, where the money is there and has always been there, know how to be served,” says a personal chef, who like everyone interviewed for this story exchanged a candid bit of dishing for the promise of anonymity. “The newer money doesn’t understand that you don’t stack up your plates and push them to the end of the table.”
But if old money knows to be cleared from the left, it also expects to be served from the right.
“We call them ‘It’s your pleasure to serve me’ people,” says one steward to the rich and powerful. “They think you must be so excited to work for them that you just can’t contain yourself … These are people who want to be answered and not spoken to. These are people who believe in the whole class structure.”
More troubling than old or new money, though, is money on the wane, which these retainers say can become paranoid, counting wine bottles in the cellar and guarding over their silver. Some turn miserly, arguing about every charge or simply “forgetting” to pay a bill. Still others are just downright petulant.
According to one caterer, the hardest clients to work for come from the old-school country club circle, some of whom “appear to be very wealthy from the outside, but in actuality are probably living dividend check to dividend check. That crowd is mean—and rude. I had someone request I bring an all-black staff because they didn’t want white people serving them.”
Another infamous incident occurred in Ladue during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial: The host dressed his houseman—an African-American—in period costume as a slave. He then stationed him outside the front door to greet incoming guests, the family’s Newfoundland at his side.
At the other end of the spectrum are the gracious, who use their wealth (often deep and long established) to become more thoughtful and philanthropic. These are the affluent who astound their staff with small acts of great kindness and generosity.
“Money does strange things to people,” says one woman, who worked as a maid for one of the city’s major power brokers. “But they were pretty normal—if you consider normal to always have all your clothes folded neatly and put away [and] being picked up after constantly.”
She remembers her two years of service fondly, adding: “They were nice people. I don’t know what they are doing now other than basking in their wealth.”
For interior designers, the wealthy present an entirely different set of challenges.
“They want it done in between their social schedules,” says one designer, whose clientele includes a number of people who would be found on anyone’s power list. “They are very conscious of original designs and not wanting anything that their friends have. They always want to be a little bit different.”
Here, the prevalent fear is not the dividend divers (not much remodeling happening there) or the longtime barons. The real danger is the dreaded trophy wife. “They typically didn’t come from their own fortune, and they got important five minutes ago,” says another designer. “They got used to snapping their fingers really fast.”
How fast? Well, there was that demanding diva who developed an unhealthy attachment to her Mercedes.
“Every time I had an appointment with her, I had to go to their house to pick her up, leave my Mercedes and drive her white 600-level Mercedes because that was the only car she really liked to be driven in,” the designer says, practically snarling. “She sat in the front seat with me, but I always had to drive. Now, isn’t that a bitch?”
