The desperate shortage of domestic staff is causing bidding wars among super rich households
Our writer lost her housekeeper for an offer five times the going rate and a gifted compound in the Algarve - and she s not alone
26 June 2021 • 6:08am
One top agency with 35,000 candidates on its books could not find one single housekeeper recently
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It was not unusual - before the pandemic - for the wealthy to move between multiple homes on the basis of a weather report. As all their homes were staffed, stocked and on standby; it was only a matter of their pilot confirming a departure time.
Never mind a butler – here s the employee every wealthy property owner is desperately after
In the lives of the super-rich, desperate times call for the ultimate solution to property maintenance
Nice to have, but can he fix the home cinema?
Credit: Getty Images
An interior designer recently took me around her billionaire client’s four storey new-build apartment in Holland Park. It wasn’t the space or the aerial views overlooking the park that I coveted; it was the man sitting at an enormous desk in a wood-panelled room lined with linen-clad box folders. “Who’s that?” I asked. “Oh, he’s the estate manager,” she said. “He makes the house work”.