The Natural History of the Rich by Richard Conniff

Author:Richard Conniff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

9

Living Large

The Habitats of the Rich

If they could see me now,

My little dusty group,

Traipsing ‘round this

Million-dollar chicken coop!

—DOROTHY FIELDS, “If My Friends Could See Me Now”

ONE AFTERNOON IN THE MAROON CREEK NEIGHBORHOOD ON THE outskirts of Aspen, a developer was showing me around a house he had recently sold. The new owners, who paid more than $10 million for the place, had settled in, and it looked like home. A very rich home at that, with 9,000 square feet of space encased in fifteen-inch logs, a chandelier made of nested elk antlers over the front entry, a collection of silver-topped canes in an ornately carved umbrella stand in the front hall, and beyond, across the vast living room, a floor-to-ceiling view of ski slopes and forested mountainside.

“We work our tails off so when you open the door you’ve got a million dollar view,” said the developer. “You say, ‘Hey, I’m in the mountains.’ ” He was a bullet-headed, blue-eyed man, in black turtleneck and leather jacket, with a rat-tat-tat, time-is-money manner. This was a turnkey house, which is to say, a time-is-money kind of house. “The big reason people buy turnkey is time,” he said. “Time is the most valuable commodity. Most of these people don’t want to take on a project, especially not in a resort community away from their main base.” So he makes it his business to sell them the finished product with all the signals of wealth-in-Aspen already built in.

Thus, despite the homey appearance, hardly a single item on display, not even the pillows embroidered with cute sayings, was intrinsic to the identity of the rich and semifamous people living here. The buyer had merely paid the price and turned the key in the door. The construction, the furnishing, the accessorizing, the taste, were all the developer’s, down to the decorative chests, the little silver-framed pictures, the candelabras, the towels (but not the robes) in the bathroom, the Calphalon and Williams-Sonoma in the kitchen, the coffee table books, and the leather-bound volumes on the mantle, including one titled Lisez-Moi, which is apparently how you say “fat chance” in Paris. The developer had even chosen the paintings on the walls. “Is it collectible? Is it Schnabel? No,” he said, bolting past the handsome frames and generic Western scenes. “The paintings run from $2,500 to $8,500. They’re more than wallpaper.” A huge trophy head presided from high over the fireplace. “I put a moose in about half the houses I do,” he said. “Nice animals. I don’t do anything controversial. I just try to do something that says ‘Mountains.’” Preferably in a deep, masculine bellow.

The idea of the turnkey house, generic housing for the rich, is odd, and it is a stretch to suggest that there is any precedent in the natural world for this kind of thing. Even so: When yellow warblers arrive in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, each spring, the trees are still leafless and there’s snow on the ground. But the warblers seem to recognize, by the shape and color of the bare willow brush, that this is good habitat for yellow warblers.

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