When it comes to living quarters for household staff, the upstairs/downstairs concept—popularized by a British TV show about an aristocratic family living in a London townhouse—is still very much the rule. But for today’s wealthiest families, downstairs may well mean a studio on a lower floor in a luxury apartment building.
From New York to London to Dubai and Singapore, developers are offering small apartments on less desirable floors to high-end buyers, so their nannies, personal assistants and chefs have only a short elevator commute to the penthouse where they work.
Nadia Meratla, senior vice president of design and development for Douglas Elliman, said these so-called accessory suites started as a condo amenity in New York in 2006 at 15 Central Park West, reversing the traditional arrangement that put staff quarters on the top floors of luxury buildings, such as the Dakota, because they had lower ceilings, pitched roofs and unreliable or nonexistent elevators.
MORE:Developers Around the World Focus on ‘Thoughtful’ Amenities
About 10% of the 200 apartments at 15 Central Park West are accessory suites, and demand in similar buildings is strong. At 432 Park Ave., Ms. Meratla said, they account for 40 of the 100 apartments. Prices start around $1 million for a 450-square-foot studio in buildings where the average price of a two-bedroom apartment is about $6 million and a three-bedroom goes for around $9 million.
In buildings still in the pipeline, prices for these staff studios range closer to $2 million, according to Ms. Meratla.
Available only to purchasers of larger apartments on higher floors, accessory suites are often described as home offices, guest suites or even storage, but they’re a big selling point, especially for buyers with families.
“Once the bedroom count gets high,” Ms. Maratla said, “people will ask if there is an opportunity to keep staff in an apartment or to acquire an accessory suite.”
Accessory suites have broad appeal worldwide
Similar accommodations in high-rises are the norm in Singapore, where 90% of the housing market is condos, and in Dubai, where this arrangement can be found in luxury developments such as Le Reve and The Crescent.
MORE:A First Look at 432 Park Ave's Over-the-Top Amenities
Richard Jordan, senior vice president of global markets at Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, noted that properties like these cater to high-end clients—but in some areas of the world, having staff is not the exclusive domain of the very wealthy. In parts of the Middle East, he said, even families that don’t have a top-tier net worth will employ a nanny and other household staff, so accessory suites are an amenity with broad appeal.
Alasdair Pritchard, a broker at Knight Frank in London specializing in global super prime markets, said he has seen a trend toward smaller staffs in recent years—perhaps just two or three people who travel with the family. Even so, those families often have multiple homes around the world, and each must have accommodations for those traveling staff members, as well as for resident staff members, who maintain those homes in order to have them ready for occupancy at a moment’s notice.
Creative solutions to be able to keep staff close
In London, a home with five or six bedroom suites and accommodations for four staff can cost upward of $35 million, Mr. Pritchard said, so some buyers seek out other—sometimes creative—means of housing their staff.
One family in Knightsbridge bought eight apartments near their home for staff members to live in, he said. Other clients have sought out adjacent townhouses so they could break through, combine them and double their living space. One buyer, he said, purchased a nearby mews house and built a tunnel to connect it to the family’s main home.
MORE:Brexit Has Opened the Doors to Opportunistic Buyers
The driving force, Mr. Jordan said, is the convenience of keeping staff close by. But, added Mr. Pritchard, it’s also part of relationship-building. One client, he said, asked him to help buy a house for the nanny as a thank you present for her last 10 years of work.
“It’s a small home,” he said, “but you’re traveling with them, they cook your food and bring up your kids, so you get close.”
Like the servants of the fictional British aristocrats on TV, those who live downstairs are staff, but they’re also, in a very real way, family.