Buying pandemic safety
Like the rest of the country, the rich in the nation’s capital are practicing social distancing, said Mimi Montgomery and Jessica Sidman in Washingtonian. They’re just doing it in luxury, with no expense spared.
DR. BROWN SAID he would charter the plane himself. He was nervous—the patients wanted him at their summer home in St. Michaels, Md., to screen them for Covid immediately. But it was a Thursday in summer, and driving would take forever. Forget about taking the car. Instead, Ernest Brown, owner of Doctors to You, a Washington-area conciergemedicine group whose house-yacht/private-jet calls start at $600 a pop, drove to Gaithersburg, Md., and hopped a puddle jumper to the airport in Easton, Md. The patients, who needed to be screened in order to meet with another VIP, sent a car to meet him. All told, Brown was at their waterfront estate for 10 minutes, max. Results: negative. In certain worlds, this might seem ludicrously extravagant, perhaps somewhat sinful. But in Brown’s, it was just another day during the pandemic, a months-long blur of screening VIP clients, along with their nannies, drivers, valets, and chefs. Sometimes, the doctor will pop out of the falcon-wing doors on his Tesla Model X in a Georgetown alley or a Potomac garage for clandestine tests. “Some of these individuals work for government entities,” says Brown. “[They] don’t want to be tested so that it becomes more public or potentially public. Because, look, you’ve had the news reports on the people in the White House coming back positive, right? So people want to get around that.” His clients also prefer the out-of-sight parts of their homes, because Brown’s full biohazard gear might scare the neighbors. “It is glaringly obvious when somebody’s walking around looking like a Teletubby,” he says. On one August day, he began with a 7:30 a.m. screening for a prominent D.C. chef, then an 8 a.m. appointment at an embassy and a 9 a.m. meeting in a Chevy Chase garage to swab the last stragglers of a Nantucket wedding party (he’d already screened the bride). After that, he rushed to Fairfax County to test two diplomats.
After 15 years in private-pay medicine, Brown is savvy to the perks his patients prize. While interruptions and long waits have plagued many local testing sites, his clients typically get results by 6 p.m. the same day. Standard health-care labs were too slow, so he worked his contacts and found a small Maryland biodefense lab with “the best testing capabilities.” Brown hand-delivers all of his samples, making sure they’re transferred safely and properly refrigerated. “I’m OCD about these things,” he says.
Another niche-facility bonus: the privacy. While Brown still has to release positive results to local authorities, he says his big-name patients’ big-name data is more secure in the smaller lab than in a commercial spot. “We have these clients that want absolute control, absolute privacy,” he says. “So we just get the job done.”
Brown’s testing will run you $275, not including the house-call charge, with more fees tacked on for weekends or holidays, or for special equipment like, you know, a chartered plane. Which, by the way— what did that cost? Brown guffaws: “I invoiced him.”
OVID-19 HAS WROUGHT lasting, horrific damage on the country— pushing millions of people out of work and killing more than 210,000, a disproportionate number of them people of color. But if the disease has upended our society, there are some slivers of Washington where people can afford an extra measure of comfort (on the hushhush, of course). The parties are still on (now the tasting menu comes to you), the kids are still in classrooms (they just might be newly installed, high-design “homerooms”), and getaways still happen (they
Cjust might involve a new yacht rather than airplane tickets).
Interior designer Josh Hildreth recently completed a backyard renovation for an Arlington family who didn’t want to give up entertaining—they put in an outdoor living room with seating for 10 as well as a firepit and a 66-inch TV for movie nights alfresco. The price tag: north of $400,000. While some redos started pre-pandemic, the stay-at-home life has increased their scope: outdoor kitchens, pool houses and cabanas, new dog runs, putting greens. Now the in-home classroom is a thing. Interior designer Tracy Morris is outfitting one for the elementary school kids of a McLean, Va., family—they’re getting matching $1,265 desks, matching $569 lamps, matching $475 chairs, and a $2,250 sofa. In the self-care department, she’s been working on home gyms—her clients often request the Woodway ($5,950) or the almighty but elusive Peloton Tread. In homes in Georgetown and Great Falls, Va., Morris installed stations for manicurists to do house calls, as well as portable hairwashing sinks so no one has to go out for their balayage.
One of Hildreth’s clients wanted to accessorize her Massachusetts Avenue Heights home with hand sanitizer but didn’t like the look of the plastic bottle. So she asked Hildreth to source some high-end trays and dispensers. Her final selection included a $470 set made from capiz shells, which she filled with a sanitizer from Italy. “Nobody,” says Hildreth, “wants to feel like there’s a medical cart in every room of their house.” With flying vacations on hold, there’s been a frenzy of boat sales. “Pretty much everything we have in inventory is sold,” says Mark Andrews, whose Annapolis Yacht Sales deals in a market you could call boutique nautique. His priciest pandemic sale so far? An $800,000-ish 54-foot Beneteau with three cabins. (Unfortunately the sailboat won’t be ready till spring.) Families, says Andrews, “would go down to the islands or go over to the Mediterranean
three-course meal to 80 homes. After the usual remarks, attendees were sent into Zoom breakout rooms, as if they all had table assignments. Businesses are hosting virtual parties for their top people, too.
One D.C. law firm booked star sommelier Brent Kroll to lead a private virtual tasting for 100 VIP clients, who were shipped four bottles each.
Headliners, it turns out, are only a phone call away. “They’re not doing anything right now,” says Harrison, the broadcasting exec. “Everyone’s home, and you can’t really say, ‘Well, I was traveling.’” Harrison chairs the National Italian American Foundation, which usually lures names such as Sophia Loren or Martin Scorsese to its fall gala. This year, it will honor the current most famous Italian-American: yes, Anthony Fauci. Harrison arranged everything with the infectious-disease expert pre-Covid. But now the virtual bash is shaping up to be a hot ticket. “No question,” she says, “everyone wants to express their appreciation.” Over the past few months, dinner parties have seemed to become a thing again—but small, with social distancing enforced, lest a host repeat the scandal of the summer: Ashley Bronczek’s Washington Ballet watch party. The hostess made headlines when she and some of her reportedly maskless guests, flouting the District’s Phase One limit on gatherings of more than 10 people, tested positive for Covid after an Insta-perfect soiree in her Spring Valley backyard. Undaunted hosts have found a new way to impress the invite list: bringing in the chef from their favorite restaurant. Pan-Latin hot spot Seven Reasons has been spooning out ceviches on Alexandria,Va., patios for $120 a head (plus $500 to add a personal maître d’), one of a number of restaurants feeding a demand for private, in-home dining. At the residence of one of his
16th Street Heights customers, Kaz Sushi Bistro chef Kaz Okochi set up a sushi counter for a 26-course tasting that featured Japanese o-toro and croaker fished locally by the chef’s friend. The dinner for four came to $2,000.
In luxe quarantine, there are no fashion victims. Rebecca “Bex” Jahangeri, a D.C. stylist who works with Kate Bennett of CNN and Susanna Quinn, the entrepreneur and fixture in D.C.’s social whirl, initially helped her clients with closet clean-outs, designating piles for donation and resale. But then it was time to shop. “They’re still posting on Instagram,” says Jahangeri of her clients, who pay $175 an hour or $2,000-ish a month for styling memberships. “Regardless of what was happening, they wanted the newest Bottega Veneta shoes, they wanted the hottest bag.” Jahangeri has all her clients’ wardrobes digitized, so it wasn’t the hugest deal to transition to virtual styling. Worse was when a bunch of luxury brands were forced to temporarily close stores and pause manufacturing. “It’s so funny—it was like people on drugs,” she says. “They were like, ‘We haven’t been able to go into a Chanel store or buy Chanel. Like, how do we get it?’” Money can’t buy a vaccine (not yet, anyway). But it seems it can buy all kinds of insurance—some psychological protection against the dark, haunting thought that parties and travel and big group dinners might be gone forever. Take Amina Muaddi heels. A pair of her sexy-high shoes can run to $1,000, yet Jahangeri’s customers have been on the stampede. As soon as the shoes are in stock, they sell out. “Buying things like that, for the clients,” Jahangeri says, “just kind of gives them hope.”
In moments so bleak they seem almost like fiction, it turns out hope is the thing with stilettos: To cover all her bases one month, a woman in McLean put in an order for four pairs.
Adapted from a story originally published in Washingtonian. Used with permission.