Upstairs, Downstairs? Mega-Mansion Estate Staffs Are Now Everywhere

Not every grand estate has a resident mixologist, but there’s plenty of room as back-of-the-house service areas have expanded in recent years.

Zones set aside for staff have grown and become more sophisticated to accommodate and maintain blue-chip properties’ increasingly complex parts: high-tech security systems, theaters, techno gyms, hammams, salt rooms, cigar lounges, wine cellars, chef kitchens, bowling alleys, wall aquariums, Botox spas, glam rooms and treatment rooms with IV drip stands for wellness infusions, to name a few.

“The wealthy have gotten exponentially wealthier and their homes larger in the past five to eight years, so we’re seeing a huge uptick in the desire for on-site services and the staff to manage it all,” says Jesse J. Harrison, principal at Harrison Design, which specializes in high-end residential and landscape architecture as well as interior design.

In today’s version of Downton Abbey’s rarefied realm, an aquarium cleaner might be just one of dozens of staff required by high-profile homeowners to get through their day. “I know that Beyoncé, for example, has a daily household staff that’s easily 40 people,” Harrison says.

But where to put them all? New-build and renovated estates are blueprinted not only for the comfort of owners and guests but also for the integration of staff spaces, which sometimes include entire wings, with living areas. Staff hierarchies are in fact studied to determine how best to streamline multiple traffic flow patterns.

“It’s a real art form to think through the reality of having 20 to 40 people in your house day and night,” says Harrison, who designs homes as large as 60,000 square feet in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood and Malibu. Harrison Design, founded in 1991, has six offices across the U.S.

Security: A property’s command center

Predictably, security is uppermost on clients' minds. It’s been 16 years since the “bling ring” hauled off $3 million in cash and goods from the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom, among others. But the rob-the-rich trend continues with a twist: “Sophisticated ‘burglary tourists’ fly from South America to rob wealthy homes,” reads a March headline in the Los Angeles Times.

Harrison offers the example of a “high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family” whose 40,000-square-foot Beverly Park estate required as many as 15 security personnel at any time. Harrison and his team gutted and rebuilt the dated 1980s Mediterranean estate in 2016 at a cost of about $40 million.

“Both the father and mother each had three security guards, and each of their six children had a security guard, and then a sister or other people would come requiring security, plus there’s patrolling security,” he says. “You can see how it quickly adds up.”

As the “command center for the property,” Harrison says security is usually placed near the motor court or garages for easy access to arriving guests and deliveries. “It’s a big enough room with a bank of monitors and phones that sits up to four people,” says Harrison, adding that security and other staff usually arrive in staggered shifts. “That’s just for your average, you know, billionaire.”

Security also figures into keeping staff from wandering into zones reserved for owners and guests, easier to do during the days of Upstairs, Downstairs. At the same time, back stairs, service elevators and additional entries must be plotted so that staff can access dining rooms, primary suites and bathrooms without using main entries.

“We plan the house so that staff can move freely without tripping over or running into the owners,” Harrison says. “That might include a commercial elevator in larger homes. It literally involves designing silos of circulation. It’s like running a five-star hotel.”

Spaces for staff to chill

Staff spaces also must be created to include everything from changing rooms to chill-out spaces. “Where does your chef sit down to create a menu and order groceries or eat his lunch and call his family?” Harrison asks. “Where does your personal assistant sit down and make calls all day? And if your child pukes on the nanny, where does she take a shower?”

Harrison strategically places staff bathrooms and laundry rooms throughout a property, “so that your housekeeper isn’t spending half her day running up and down the stairs,” he says. “There’s usually a laundry upstairs and downstairs, one by the pool and one near the kitchen.”

Offices for estate managers and personal assistants, with whom owners directly communicate, are closer to a home’s living areas.

Entire staff wings are sometimes created, such as the one Harrison recently designed for a 30,000-square-foot modernist Beverly Park home. Located on the main level, the 2,000-plus-square-foot wing includes a catering kitchen and pantries; staff changing and break areas; offices for security, an estate manager and a personal assistant; laundry; package room; and two staff bedrooms with baths. Most, if not all, staff in such homes live off-site, although Harrison’s international clients favor some live-in staff.

Buying adjacent properties to create a compound, a trend among celebrities, can also help separate the staff. “I have a celebrity client right now who likes having multiple structures,” Harrison says. “Staff are always coming and going, so their glam area is in one guest house, and their gym is in another guest house. They want to keep their home as a private sanctuary.”

One thing that hasn’t changed much since Upstairs, Downstairs: staff meals. “Just like the Gilded Age, sitting together and having dinner downstairs or somewhere else is still the reality of the situation,” Harrison says. “Most of my clients care about their staff. They want to make sure they’re treated well and are comfortable. At the same time, they don’t want 15 people eating lunch in their family kitchen.”

Catering kitchens, mega gyms and wellness centers

Plotting placement of restaurant-grade kitchens, which can cost as much as $1 million, takes finesse. For a transitional Georgian-style Bel Air home that Harrison and his team created for Rick and Kathy Hilton, a catering kitchen was carved out of the home’s lower level. “For parties, the caterers can set up there, and then a dumbwaiter and elevator are nearby to send food up to the main kitchen, the dining room or the primary suite if just the family wants to order food.”

Home gyms top out at about 2,000 square feet. “People want a full gym like they would use at Equinox,” Harrison says. “They want custom and techno equipment, sport courts, outdoor workout areas and the ability to accommodate trainers, Pilates and yoga instructors and massage therapists.”

Home wellness centers range from a “beautiful spa-like bathroom with a steam shower” to massage rooms, changing areas, “and we’re doing one for a high-profile client that has a full Turkish hammam,” Harrison says. “I’ve had clients who want a salt room.” Cue increased staff to service such high-maintenance wet areas and additional entries.

Areas reserved to pamper and indulge include glam suites with a professional salon for hair and makeup, wardrobe and dressing areas, a powder room, and a lounge area with a bar for coffee, tea and champagne.

“For the Saudi royal family, we also had a full area to do two people’s manicures and pedicures,” Harrison says. “The area had to be completely self-contained so providers could come in and out of the house without posing a security risk. Almost every house we do now has both a wellness center and a glam area.”

But wait, there’s more. Harrison created a drivers’ lounge for the Saudi royals, or rather their drivers, a space for the crew of six to grab a shisha smoke when not piloting Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Aston Martins and at least one Lamborghini—about a dozen autos, all told.

Along with a car wash, the lounge was a logical add-on: “Drivers end up sitting around and waiting a lot,” Harrison says.

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