Ah, the Secluded Life

With privacy at such a premium, yachts are back in fashion, too. The 200-year-old yacht brokerage Camper & Nicholsons has seen its luxury-charter business triple in the past five years. Jeffrey Beneville, head of Camper & Nicholson's development business, says there is such a tremendous appetite for $100 million yachts that the company has a "supply problem" right now. "We're basically in the business of building private islands that orbit the earth," he says.

The ultrawealthy are also entering into formal compacts to pool assets and share advice on investing and philanthropy. When American George Russell sold his family's investment firm for more than $1 billion in 1998, he developed the Threshold Group, an exclusive investment club for wealthy families that values human trust above financial ones. "We're a bit choosy about who we invite," says Russell, who makes applicants fill out detailed questionnaires on topics including family values. Different networks emphasize different things; New York-based Synergos focuses on philanthropy, while Tiger 21 emphasizes social networking. In Chicago, Family Office Exchange runs a network of 350 families across 22 countries who meet annually; the group's most popular service is its Listserv, where families query each other on things like estate planning and buying private jets.

Partnerships like these have probably been around as long as money has, but their desirability has been elevated by the growing complexity and exclusivity of global financial markets. Accessing the best hedge funds, for instance, can require near-limitless resources, and pooling resources provides more buying power. In addition, the need for networking has grown. As globalization ties far-off markets closer together, even the most accomplished business people are scrambling to expand their Rolodexes—for business as well as personal reasons. Todd Millay, a partner at CCC Alliance, a Boston-based network for the ultrarich, says that while middle-class people can easily discuss their jobs and livelihoods at a dinner party, wealthy families can't just "invite people over and expect them to understand what it's like to have $300 million."

Gated living is also being inspired by more-concrete fears. Global rates of kidnapping and homicide are on the rise, and many of the elite are aware of the security risks their wealth poses. Kroll, the world's leading private-security firm, based in New York, says that its business with ultrahigh-net-worth individuals has increased steadily. Not only do the superrich outfit their homes and cars with the latest closed-circuit TV cameras and tracking devices, but they are sending their families—and staff—to courses to learn how to better read potentially dangerous situations. "It does not matter if you have Fort Knox around your house —if you let someone in the gate who has not been screened, that is your weakest link," says Ian French, Kroll's managing director of security consulting.

The superrich are increasingly willing to pay high premiums for health care, too. Medical concierge services are popping up across the globe; whether they're in Toronto or Tbilisi, the wealthy can contact their doctors at any hour and keep the world's top specialists on speed dial. Since PinnacleCare opened in 2002, the concierge medical company—which has offices in the United States, London and Madrid—has grown 60 percent a year. For an annual fee of $8,000 to $40,000 a year, members buy services like 24/7 access to their medical records or a doctor who will meet them on the tarmac as soon as their Gulfstream touches down. "Our clients are the kind of people who seek out the best kind of financial advisers, estate planners, tax lawyers, and they do the same [with] their health care," says PinnacleCare's chairman, Bruce Spector. Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly can buy membership.

With Barrett Sheridan

© 2007