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The April 1, 2007 issue of the LA Times writes...
If the Butler Does It, You'll Pay
The rich need more servants. How does $80K a year sound?
The rich might be getting richer, but their lives are hardly trouble-free. In Southern California, there aren't enough servants to go around.
Wealthy families need more chefs to prepare their meals, more maids and butlers to serve them, more housekeepers to keep their mansions tidy and more nannies and night nurses to tend their offspring...
The burgeoning service industry now has its own glossy magazine, CelebStaff: Managing Mansions and Estates. Its offices are in Beverly Hills.
"For the average Joe, this type of lifestyle is unimaginable," the CelebStaff editors write, "but those that live it will have it no other way!"
- David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writer
The March 20, 2007 issue of the Washington Post writes...
The Servant Class
It's soooooo hard to find good household servants these days, especially if you happen to be a celebrity.
Fortunately, the latest issue of CelebStaff, the magazine for celebrities and their factotums, contains a helpful special section called "The Well-Run Mansion."
"Running a mansion needs many pairs of hands," the magazine proclaims, and then it proceeds to list the folks attached to those hands -- estate manager, house manager, personal assistant, chef, chauffeur, nanny, housekeeper, houseman, butler, baby nurse, lady's maid and so on.
Times have changed in the servant business. For instance, you have to actually pay these people now, you can't just own them. Your butler will cost you $70,000 a year, plus medical insurance and vacations and a 401K. But butlers do more than they once did: "Now they are equally skilled polishing silver, changing a light bulb, doing extensive research online or giving massages to their employers."
Your lady's maid will cost you $50,000 a year, plus benefits. But she's no longer just a maid. "Some highly accomplished Lady's Maids may also cut and set hair and give massages, manicures and pedicures. She also packs and unpacks for travel."
CelebStaff provides some helpful hints on how to treat your servants. For instance, "never let employees get so comfortable that they ask special requests, like extra time off." Also, try to hire people who have a "Service Heart," which is "the ability to suppress personal ego, while maintaining a low profile that never detracts from the owner."
Michael Holly certainly has a service heart. Holly writes the "Memoirs of a Celebrity Butler" column in CelebStaff, telling amusing little anecdotes about his career "in the service of those in the higher echelons of society..."
- Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
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