YOU RANG? Mastering the Art of Serving the Rich by John P

thomas frank: it’s not the tea party, it’s you

harper’s magazine/January 2014 $6.99

u YOU RANG? mastering the art of serving the rich By John P. Davidson THE PIOUS SPY a taliban intelligence Chief’s Death and resurrection By Mujib Mashal SUBJECT TO SEARCH A story by Lorrie Moore

Also: Lydia Davis, Lauren Groff, Gordon Lish u FOLIO

You Rang? Mastering the art of serving the rich By John P. Davidson

Stranded be- The Starkey In- tween parking lots stitute functions as in downtown Denver a laboratory simu- two blocks from the lation of a great state capitol, the Star- house. In addition key International to training stu- Institute is both a dents in household- relic of the past and management strate- a portal into the al- gies, proper cleaning ternate reality of our techniques, and the new Gilded Age. care of antiques, de- Redbrick with white signer clothing, and trim, the mansion luxury automobiles, that houses the insti- the Starkey staff tute was built by a make site visits to wealthy family in the the homes of poten- Georgian style prev- tial clients to place alent during the turn of the twentieth century. Starkey graduates, train existing staff, and carry Mary Louise Starkey—who styles herself the “First out consultations. Mrs. Starkey claims to offer a Lady of Service”—opened the institute’s doors in privileged view of “the behind-the-scenes life- 1981, just before the heady free-market reforms of styles of the wealthiest in the world.” And so, Ronald Reagan’s rst term. Now, after a genera- along with eleven fellow students, I enrolled tion’s worth of tax cuts, deregulation, and union- there in April 2012 in hopes of emerging eight busting that have spawned a new class of the weeks later a certied estate manager, qualied super-rich, the Starkey Institute (inevitably de- for intimate employment by the One scribed as the “Harvard of private-service Percent’s One Percent. schools”) claims to turn away many applicants from what the media has taken to calling its Finding good servants was once such a prob- “butler boot camp.” lem in the United States that in 1865 Catharine

John P. Davidson is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. His novel, The Obedient Assassin, is out this month from Delphinium Books. Photographs by Moyra Davey from the Homestead Inn–Thomas Henkelmann. Davey’s work is currently on view at Satellite Gallery, in Vancouver. Courtesy Murray Guy, New York City. Borders courtesy private collection, New York City

FOLIO 41 Beecher, a reformer and authority on domestic life, peared; bedrooms shrank and living spaces owed made a proposal in the pages of this magazine for together. Rising wages, taxes, and energy costs houses “built on Christian principles”; that is, bet- meant that large, old-fashioned estates became too ter designed and organized, so they could be run expensive to run. with only the occasional help of an “assistant.” The recent shift back to servants has happened (This was something of a revolutionary idea in an largely out of sight. The Bureau of Labor Statistics era of hand-cranked washing machines, fteen does not track the employment of butlers and house years before gas stoves became affordable, and managers, but there has been undeniable growth in seventeen years before the iron was electri ed— the professionalized private-service industry in re- but it was necessary, Beecher asserted, to avoid an cent years. Between 2000 and 2012, the number of epidemic of female laziness and the ruination of U.S. billionaires doubled, to 405, and the number children by “ignorant foreigners.”) of individuals with fortunes of at least $50 million The United States never had anything like the swelled to 45,650. Matthew Haack and Michael English servant class: people did not emigrate to Wright founded the Domestic Estate Managers become servants; notwithstanding racial barriers, Association in 2006. The association now has more than 2,000 members and estimates that 450,000 houses in the United States have some kind of regular personal staff. For some time, becoming a servant had been one of those idle dropout fantasies I entertained, along with becoming a shepherd or joining a mon- astery. Now, having sold my house and spent ten years and a great deal of money writing a novel that my agent hadn’t been able to sell, I had a some- what more urgent interest in the six- gure jobs the Starkey Institute dangles before prospective students. And perhaps I would like being a servant. I had read somewhere that Patrick Dennis, after blowing the fortune he’d made on his novel Auntie Mame, had ended his life happily as a butler. And a friend in Atlanta had told me that his mother had a wonderful life with her butler/ houseman, taking him everywhere with her, on trips to Europe and to exclusive resorts. “Everyone in Atlanta has started using gays,” he assured me. The school urged students to come prepared to accept a job at the end of the course (though at a cost of $16,795, including a $500 application our class system was fairly uid; and there were fee and a nonrefundable $2,800 room-and-board many employment opportunities and cheap land. deposit, the urging seemed unnecessary). Rich For most of those in private service, such employ- families who wanted a butler wouldn’t wait. “Are ment was not a hereditary or even stable vocation you willing to move?” the admissions of ce asked but a temporary gig. Nevertheless, the number of me. It was best to be free of attach- servants continued more or less to keep pace with ments, ready to go. the population until World War II, when able- bodied men were shipped overseas and women, for I entered my new life of service on Easter whom employment up to that point had mostly Sunday. Mark Tollison, the institute’s director of been in private service, went to work in factories. admissions, greeted me at the door. A nice-looking The postwar economic boom further diverted both man in his fties, wearing a navy blazer and oral- jobs and workers from private service, and by 1950 print tie, he helped me with my luggage. I followed only one in forty-two families had full-time ser- him through a very big kitchen and up a short vants, as compared with one in fteen in 1900. ight of stairs. Framed photographs of previous New houses were much smaller and more ef cient. Starkey classes lined the walls of the staircase and The formal dining room and butler’s pantry disap- continued down a broad central hallway on the

42 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 second oor. “You’re in here,” Tollison said, knock- lison went through the rules and regulations. We ing on the rst door to the right. After waiting a were to address peers and Starkey staff as Mr. or moment, he opened the door just as a man in his Ms. We would stand whenever a staff member late thirties, shirtless and wearing plaid boxer or guest entered a room. And, of course, we would shorts, came striding across the room. Short and never use the front door. During the business day, muscular, with wiry black hair, thick eyebrows, we would use the back stairs. We would keep our and heavy black-framed glasses, he stuck out his rooms ready for inspection. We would not smoke hand and announced his name: David Palmer.1 cigarettes or drink alcoholic beverages in the David wore a gold signet ring overlapping a wed- house. Dinner was at ve thirty, curfew at eleven. ding band on the little nger of his left hand, and if “Placement is a big deal,” Bullock (or rather, it’s possible to look dapper when you’re almost naked, Ms. Bullock) said. “Everybody wants to nd a great he did. He mentioned that working at Christie’s job . .. There are a lot of placement agencies out after college had made him decide that he wanted there, but they don’t have the service-management to own some of the objects he was handling, which system that we do. Mrs. Starkey goes into homes was why he’d come to Starkey International. I had to do a site visit and will write a fty-page report. the impression he’d said it many times before. “Mrs. Starkey is very passionate about what Our large room was painted a pale green and she does,” she continued. “She makes had wall-to-wall beige carpeting; most of the fur- people cry.” niture looked as if it had come from an estate sale. I unpacked my things until it was time to get ready Most Americans are familiar with servants for orientation. “What do you think, blazer or from British novels and television shows— suit?” I asked. “Denitely a suit,” David answered P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels, the BBC series without hesitation. Upstairs Downstairs, and, more recently, Downton In the hall, two well-dressed, crew-cut men Abbey. But the Starkey mansion and its staff are who looked like government agents were coming part of a tradition, both feudalistic and paternal- out of the opposite room. Both, in fact, were istic, reaching back to the Middle Ages, when military aides—enlisted men who act as valets, aristocrats and wealthy gentry were, if you will, the chefs, and butlers to high-ranking ofcers. Gary original “job creators.” According to Jeremy Mus- Smith was running the household of a three-star son, who traces the evolution of the English ser- Army general in Washington and had come to vant class through the twentieth century in Up Denver for a one-week management course in and Down Stairs, by the eighteenth century the anticipation of leaving the Army and entering typical aristocratic household had between thirty private service. Anthony D’Amico had just re- and fty servants; larger country houses employed turned from South Korea, where he had cooked as many as a hundred. On average, a duke had for a two-star Navy admiral. He was hoping to twenty-six male servants; a baron, fteen. become a house manager. English housemaids in the nineteenth century Downstairs, we gathered in the living room, all followed strict schedules to stay out of sight, the students—six women and six men—in dark cleaning the public rooms in the morning before suits. Tollison led the orientation session with the family rose, moving to the bedrooms when Debra Bullock, the director of education, a tall family and guests went down to breakfast. Maids woman with short, heavily moussed hair who were expected to scurry away at their approach. looked more than a little like David Bowie. The British academic Rosie Cox writes in The Tollison started by giving his credentials: an Servant Problem that Lord Crewe of Crewe Hall M.B.A., a J.D., and a previous position as an estate in Cheshire “gave strict orders that any house- manager and consultant overseeing multiple prop- maid seen by his visitors would be instantly dis- erties, including a 30,000-square-foot house. After missed.” Cox suggests that maids were kept out of that job ended (his employers left the country, and sight to bolster the sense that aristocrats were he remained because of family obligations), he “inherently clean, free from any kind of pollution enrolled at Starkey as a student and stayed on as a or contamination.”2 member of the staff. Other servants, however, were hired precisely Bullock, speaking later that day in a downstairs for show. Liveried footmen who served at table and classroom, claimed no advanced degrees. She had rode on carriages were kitted out with fancy gold come to Starkey from the Brown Palace, Denver’s braid, ne buckled shoes, and silk stockings. A oldest luxury hotel, built in 1892, where she’d been footman should be tall—the broader his shoulders the head of housekeeping. Together, she and Tol- 2 The back or service stairs were an innovation dating to 1 In order to protect the privacy of clients and fellow the seventeenth century, when hiding servants became students, and to abide by the Starkey Institute’s non part of the architectural plan of both country estates disclosure agreement, names and identifying character and town houses. The back stairs meant, as an English istics have been changed. Staff members’ names have wit wrote, that “the gentry going up the stairs, no longer not been changed. met their last night’s faeces coming down them.”

FOLIO 43 and the shapelier his calves, the more impressive cians, plumbers, carpenters), negotiating contracts, was the wealth of the employer who could exempt dealing with tenants, paying bills, contesting tax such a specimen from manual labor. appraisals, and so on. By the time I nished the The servant class was as strati ed as the aris- application process, I almost felt like a different tocracy. At its top sat the steward—the equiva- person. Starkey might have accepted me as a for- lent of today’s estate manager—who looked after mer journalist, but a billionaire obsessed with the principal residence, administered the tenant privacy would never have hired me. My fellow farms, and collected rents. He was equal in stand- students were more impressive than I had ex- ing only to the chamberlain, responsible for his pected, most having some sort of university educa- master’s most intimate necessities. (Some estates tion, and a few possessing so much experience I would employ, in addition to a house steward, a couldn’t make sense of why they were here. land steward and a bailiff, who ran the home Mr. Tollison took us on a tour of the mansion. farm.) Reporting to the steward was the upper The main oor had a grand hallway, a powder echelon of servants: the butler, the housekeeper, room, a library with replace, a formal living room and the clerk of the kitchen, who provisioned the and dining room, a sunporch (used as an of ce by house. The butler looked after the silver and ne Mrs. Starkey), a butler’s pantry, and a big utility glass, managed the wine cellar, and was in charge kitchen with an of ce for the chef. Its most distinc- of the footmen, the valets, and the lady’s maids. tive feature—the service stairway that connected (Valets, lady’s maids, and butlers didn’t wear the three oors of the house—was hidden. The uniforms and had direct and extensive contact servants in the original household slept on the third with their masters and mistresses, bathing and oor, but, apart from cleaning the family bedrooms dressing them and overseeing their wardrobes and baths on the second oor and the living areas and personal effects.) on the rst oor, did much of their work in the The housekeeper, invariably a woman, saw to it kitchen or the basement, where there was a laundry that floors were polished, grates and hearths room, workshop, and furnace room. scrubbed, beds made, windows washed. If there When the tour was over I went back up to my wasn’t a chef, the housekeeper also managed cooks quarters and found Mr. Palmer already sitting at and ran the kitchen. She supervised the china the desk, in front of his laptop. He had grown up closet, the dairy, and the laundry. (Great houses in Boca Raton, Florida, but had spent school vaca- had enormous amounts of laundry: clothing for tions in England with his mother and his late the family, uniforms for staff, and ne linens that stepfather, a retired British Army colonel. “He was,” had to be processed and inventoried.) The groom Mr. Palmer would frequently say, squinting as if of chambers, meanwhile, acted as an in-house either his words or the range of my experience decorator-conservator, pushing the heirlooms failed him, “an English gentleman.” His mother still around to best effect. Finally, “odd men” did the “went for the season” and kept a house in Suffolk. heavier work in the house, and a “rubber” was He glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve seen the responsible for dry-rubbing the oors.3 stuff about Starkey online?” As the British mercantile class became richer in I had. The local alternative paper, Westword, had the nineteenth century, they emulated the aristoc- published a long story about the Denver police’s racy. (And today it is of course largely the mercan- 2004 arrest of Mrs. Starkey for grabbing a student tile class who employ servants.) By the age of the by the neck and pulling her in front of a mirror, great industrialists, country houses had come to shouting that she would not have her photo taken function with an almost factorylike precision, and for the Starkey website until she did something the English servant had evolved to a with her hair. The paper printed Mrs. Starkey’s mug state approaching perfection. shot, though charges were subsequently dismissed and her record expunged; Mrs. Starkey would later As I waited my turn to stand up and intro- say that, as the Martha Stewart of Denver, she had duce myself to the group, I began to get nervous. found herself exposed to the same sort of witch I had rewritten my résumé in order to apply for hunt Stewart was facing at the time. Neither of us admission, deleting much of my work history in knew what to make of the stories. publishing and inventing a past as a property Our rst day started at a leisurely nine o’clock in manager. As the story went, I had run a wealthy the larger of the two basement classrooms—the friend’s portfolio of rental houses in Austin, which men in regulation navy blazers, neckties, and kha- gave me experience supervising vendors (electri- ki trousers; the women in navy blazers and khaki skirts. Everyone snapped to attention as Ms. Bul- 3 For purposes of comparison, the Star key mansion, im- lock entered, smiling and holding up her palm as if mediately after its construction as a private residence, in to say we needn’t bother. 1901, would likely have been staffed by two maids, a butler, a cook, and a gardener; the butler or gardener She gave us our daily rotation sheets: going for- would perhaps have done double duty as chauffeur; and ward, we would have a class meeting at seven a laundress may have come in one or two days a week. thirty, then proceed to our job assignments, which

44 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 we would perform till class began at nine. “Mrs. Star- As Ms. Bullock started handing out course key wants you to do the jobs [of the people] you will materials, Mr. Averill, a trim man in his forties manage,” Ms. Bullock explained. We would stay in with thick gray hair, approached her with a pair each assignment for three or four days, then move of scissors. “Do you mind if I remove that rope to the next position. My name came at the very from your jacket?” he asked in his Georgia drawl. bottom of the list, matched with KC, kitchen clean- “It’s just driving me crazy.” The “rope” he was re- ing. Having dispatched the rotations, Bullock told ferring to was a piece of thread. A good house us we would be meeting Mrs. Starkey and the rest manager, I would learn, can walk into a large room of the staff at noon. Clasping her hands together, and know immediately which chandelier is miss- she demonstrated the proper way to introduce ing a lightbulb—in the world of service, the scale ourselves: “Mrs. Starkey, staff, fellow students, hon- is vast but the smallest detail reigns supreme. (I ored guests ...” We were then to say our names, had assumed many of the super-rich would be where we were from, something about our educa- extremely detail-oriented, that this kind of focus tion and work history, why we had come to Starkey, contributed to their nancial success, but then I and what we hoped to accomplish. After Ms. Bul- heard stories about Starkey clients completely lock nished, we took turns practicing, like children forgetting a house they owned.) preparing for a recital. The room had ve rows of three desks each. In the front row was Tyler Averill, who, having run a catering service for twenty years, had been chosen to be the rst student house manager. He was from the rural South; to convey that something happened in the distant past he would say, “That was back when God was just a boy,” and in describing a vacation with family members he might mention, “They fry bacon every morning of the world.” Next to Mr. Averill was the assistant house manager, Mary Anne Fowler. She had grown up on a farm in west- ern Pennsylvania and escaped to the Navy the moment she graduated from high school, eventually retiring with the rank of master sergeant. She had left a position as an assistant estate manager to come to Starkey as a student, and hoped one day to run an estate of her own. I sat in the back row with Doris Brown, a graduate of Texas Christian University who had recently left a position working for a tech mogul in the Bay Area because she had found her work circumstances ethically compromising. Like Gary Smith, she was Ms. Bullock dened some of the basic termi- taking a one-week course at Starkey in hopes of nology we would use. “Principals” are the owners getting placed. Tom and Cheryl Drecker, a couple of a property, the ultimate employers. An “estate from Illinois, sat just to our left, behind David manager” runs houses larger than 18,000 square Palmer and a young Mongolian woman named feet or multiple properties; for smaller properties, Bolormaa Sarangerel. The woman on the aisle, the job description is “house manager.” The one Catherine Miller, had given up her job as a corpo- term we would hear regularly that I never heard rate ight attendant for a charter service in Chi- Ms. Bullock dene was “family ofce,” a key in- cago to become a house manager so she could sleep stitution in the world of private service, which in the same bed every night. To her right sat Dolly refers not to a room in a house but to people. Kensington, a large, powerful-looking woman, with Family ofces are private companies set up exclu- her husband, Carl, whose blond hair and crystal-blue sively to serve the nancial and personal needs eyes made him look like a life-size doll; they had of one family. The ofces employ money manag- worked together at a hotel. To avoid the cost of two ers, lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, and sec- full tuitions, he was coming for just the rst week. retaries, who formulate investment strategies, pay

FOLIO 45 taxes, negotiate prenuptials, hire and re domes- “One of my principals in Washington would get tic staff, pay bills, and balance checkbooks. very upset if I bought the wrong size jar of Vase- The Greenwich, Connecticut, Family Ofce line,” said Doris Brown. “It had to be the one-and- Association (FOA), a global organization that a-half-ounce size. If I bought another size, she provides “peer networking, expert resources, and wasn’t happy.” fresh perspectives on how to maintain vigorous Getting the details right was especially impor- multi-generational wealth,” traces the institution tant when there were several houses, so that back to the Roman major domus (“head of house- consistency could be maintained from property hold”) and the medieval major domo (“chief stew- to property in the remotes for television sets, the ard”). The FOA pegs the entry-level fortune neces- controls for lighting and security systems, the or- sary to support a family ofce at $50 million, but ganization of kitchen and bathroom cupboards. most people in private banking put the minimum Principals did not want to fumble around, lost in at $100 million. their own houses. Ms. Fowler used Excel spread- “Your principals will be CEOs and billionaires,” sheets to stock refrigerators with soft drinks, then Ms. Bullock said, “but they won’t realize they need lined up and photographed the contents so that a HR rules in their own house. You will have to train glance would tell what needed replenishment. She your families, because they don’t know what they religiously checked the expiration dates on cans need. You have to put the rules in place without of soda: if you own seven houses and each has as making the principals feel you’re changing every- many as six refrigerators—two in the kitchen, one thing, and that’s an art.” in the garage or storeroom, one in the pool house, To maintain boundaries, we had to speak, dress, one in the master suite, one in the screening and carry ourselves with fastidious professionalism, room—for a total of forty-two refrigerators, it’s and we had to be on guard when our employers possible that years could pass before a tried to treat us like family. If they urged us to make can of soda is opened. use of their possessions—a spin in the Bentley, a weekend at the Malibu house, even a swim in the At noon, we trooped upstairs to the living pool—we should under no circumstances con- room and lined up before Mrs. Starkey. A some- sider doing so. what stout woman of about sixty, she was sitting “How do you address your principal?” Ms. Bul- in one of the armchairs at the center of the room, lock asked rhetorically, before telling us about a wearing ats and a black velour pantsuit, a cup of site visit she’d once made in Dallas. “The house coffee resting at her side on a cushion. Her hair manager was the only person on the staff allowed and makeup were impressively styled, and her left to speak to the principal. He had recruited a upper lip was a little swollen. Nine staff members housekeeper from another position, and on her rst stood behind her. day, working in a hallway, she said good morning When we completed our introductions— to the woman of the house as she passed by. At the Mrs. Starkey, staff, fellow students—she began to end of the day, the housekeeper was gone.” speak, without rising from her chair. “I want you Ms. Bullock encouraged us to share our own to know that I love you,” she said in a very loud experiences. Turning to Mary Anne Fowler, voice. “I love each and every one of you. I love you Ms. Bullock asked, “The family you work for, how because I need you. I can use each and every one large is their staff?” of you. Every day I have people calling, looking for “One hundred people,” Ms. Fowler answered. good staff. I can’t keep up with the demand. And “One hundred?” the way this industry is growing! This industry “That’s for several houses.” Ms. Fowler wasn’t has ...” She shifted slightly so that her coffee cup sure exactly how many, but a minimum of seven, slipped and threatened to tip over, eliciting a col- including two in California—one in the desert lective gasp from her staff as several rushed toward and another at the beach. Each house had its own her. Securing the cup with her left hand, Mrs. Star- estate manager and staff, and a separate company key smiled and resumed. “Sixty percent of the employed workers for backup services—all for a training here is psychological. Our clients are some family of four. “It’s complicated, because they’re of the richest people in the country, celebrities, new money and want to pretend their lives haven’t famous people.” She extended her left hand above changed, so none of us can go into the house if the her head. “My clients are way up here, and this is family’s there. The chef goes in to take the food, where you are.” She raised her right hand to just but it’s prepared at a separate house.” below shoulder level. “The training I’m going to “People don’t realize they need staff until they give you, the professional vocabulary, will put you buy a twenty-thousand-square-foot house and on a more equal footing.” She raised her right hand can’t keep it clean,” said Ms. Bullock. “You have so that it was higher but still well below the level to gure out what your principals’ agenda is and of her client. “I’m going to bring you up to here.” learn to support it. Very often it’s the small things She told us that we would be professionals. We they notice.” would not use the term “domestic” (which, I as-

46 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 sumed, would bring to mind slavery). We would her design work began to dwindle, she went to not refer to anyone as “help.” We would not talk culinary school. about “maids.” Maids were now “housekeepers.” My job in the butler’s pantry included brewing Mrs. Starkey considers herself a pioneer and a two kinds of coffee and making sure that there was reformer, but she has tapped into a strain of sugar and cream. I’d never worked in a restaurant nostalgia with a long and virulent history in the and didn’t know how to use the commercial coffee- United States: a yearning for the golden age of makers, one of which, under Ms. Fowler’s watchful service. As Donald E. Sutherland points out in gaze, I promptly broke. his book Americans and Their Servants, this Both Debra Bullock and Mrs. Starkey had told “glorious era” is and always has been imaginary. us that private service is “the highest level of ser- And there has been no agreement on when it vice” and that the level now available is “the actually existed: highest it has ever been.” Compared with what? I wondered. Such an absolute statement made me No matter where one stood in time, it was always a skeptical. But after a few days at Starkey, I began generation or two in the past . . . For many years, to realize that private service can be tailored with the ideal servant had supposedly lived at the time of the American Revolution or during the early almost unbelievable exactitude to the wishes and years of the Republic. needs of one individual or family. The relationship is long-term, so the employee grows to know his Sutherland found that for much of the nine- principals so well that he can anticipate whatever teenth century some private houses employed as they might want. When perfectly executed, this many as forty servants, but that most upper- kind of service relieves the principal of all mun- middle-class families got by with one or two. By dane tasks, concerns, and annoyances, thus creat- 1900, there were 1.5 million—almost all of them ing a domestic environment entirely free of super- women, just as almost all women who earned a uous friction. wage were servants (the average was about four To eliminate such friction, the rst week of class cents an hour, around ve dollars in today’s mon- Debra Bullock introduced us to the Starkey HQ ey). During the 1870s and 1880s, the new tycoons Service Management Software, which provides a of railroads, oil, and manufacturing built man- quick look at how complicated the lives of the rich sions and estates. If not so much a golden age, this can be. Ideally, the software allows estate manag- was at least the peak of private service in Amer- ers to create a vast living document that will tell ica; to find servants, middle- and upper-class them everything they might possibly need to know Americans relied on “intelligence ofces” that about the operation of a household: who should be specialized in different types of workers, recent where at any given time, what is being done, and immigrants to the cities—Irish, Chinese, African what needs to be done. Americans from the South. Most towns of any In learning to be estate and house managers, we size had at least one intelligence ofce, and larg- would create les on all members of the family, er cities had hundreds. Some of these ofces, like listing everything from birthdays to club associa- Starkey, specialized in placing servants tions to drug prescriptions to blood types. We with only the richest households. would keep records on the people who worked in the house and the vendors who came regularly— The morning of our second day, our training tutors, dog-walkers, arborists, orists. We would began in earnest. I reported to the kitchen, where also keep les on family friends and frequent visi- I encountered a massive man with a shaved head, tors. Did they drink scotch, bourbon, or cognac? a gray goatee, and a big stomach in a white chef’s Were they vegetarian, vegan? Were they allergic tunic. His lively eyes were the color of mirrored to peanuts, seafood, certain fabric softeners? We aviator lenses. This was William Althoff, our chef would both script and document parties and events and cooking instructor. During his Navy career, he in the house—guest lists, menus, owers, china, had been assigned to the White House and cooked silver, crystal, shopping. When major festivities for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, loom, the software lets you pull up the les to see and Bill Clinton. He commuted to Starkey from what was done before, who did it, and how. Colorado Springs, where he lived with his wife and We were expected to maintain daily, weekly, children and worked as a youth minister at a local monthly, and yearly schedules. Each morning church. I quickly learned to address and refer to there is a set of tasks for opening the house— him as Chef, as if it were his name. turning off exterior lights, disarming security I put on a long black apron and started unload- systems, pulling drapes, bringing in newspapers, ing the rst of two dishwashers. Anthony D’Amico emptying ashtrays—and every evening there are was the student chef, and Tricia Berlin was the routines for closing. We also made lists of per- student sous-chef. Formerly a freelance graphic sonal services provided to the principals: drawing designer, Ms. Berlin had left Chicago after 9/11 baths, setting out medications, polishing eye- because she wanted to live in a smaller city. When glasses. We were told it was important to walk

FOLIO 47 through the property often. In the world of vast from country Mongolia.” She had come to the mansions and rambling estates, there are frequent United States to attend a community college in stories of oors collapsing because of a leak in a Los Angeles and was old enough—about thirty— spare bathroom. to remember her native country under socialism. In starting a new position, Ms. Bullock told “Everyone was pretty much the same, but only a us, we must learn the schedules and routines of few could leave Mongolia, and we didn’t know the principals so as to work around them. For the much about the outside world. Now there are very, purposes of cleaning, we should divide the house very rich people,” she said, her voice lled with into contiguous zones whose surfaces or furnishings wonder, “and very poor. We prefer the freedom, required the same treatment. Next, the house but I never could have imagined how hard people manager should design a weekly cleaning schedule have to work here.” that permitted each room to receive a light Catherine Miller, the former ight attendant, cleaning and one or two rooms to receive a deep was chirping about sports cars, comparing Mer- cleaning—furniture moved, rugs shampooed, cedes SLs and Porsches. She volunteered that a windows and sills washed, oors buffed. As long recent boyfriend had told her he was breaking as there is sufcient money, maintenance is never up with her because she was too fat, which I deferred. You never wait for paint to show its age; found preposterous. “Did your boyfriend have money?” asked Ms. Fowler. “If he had money, he knew he could get younger women.” After dinner that night, David Palmer and I went out for a drink with Anthony D’Amico and Gary Smith. Mr. D’Amico, who had served in Iraq, was scrambling for stability after his return from South Korea and discharge from the Army. He had been raised by a single mother and was divorcing a wife who was pregnant with another man’s child. Mili- tary aides with several years’ experience were fairly easy to place with principals, and Mr. D’Amico was happy because Chef had told him about a family in Virginia looking to hire a live-in cook. Tall and lanky with an easy smile, Mr. Smith had gone to culinary school, then joined the Navy, volunteering to serve on a nuclear sub. He liked working for his admiral in Washington and was happily married. Things were going his way, and he felt condent that with Starkey on his résumé and placing him, he would get a great job after he left the Navy. you upgrade appliances after a set number of years All three agreed that Mrs. Starkey had “re- or model improvements. Carpets should never ally created something” with her school and look as if they need to be replaced. Everything that we didn’t need to worry about competing with must be pristine and fresh. one another, because we were all different and all “You will know everything about your prin- the jobs required a particular kind of experience cipals’ lives,” said Ms. Bullock. “Everything! or type of person. Most house managers start at And at a certain point that becomes your job around $60,000 to $80,000, and estate managers security, because they don’t want you usually earn salaries in the six gures. (In one of to talk.” the telephone conversations I had with the admissions ofce before leaving Austin, I was told that At lunch, I found myself sitting next to Bolor- a Starkey graduate who was a retired lieutenant maa Sarangerel. “My name is Miss Sharon,” she colonel—which branch, I don’t recall—had land- would say every time we ritually reintroduced ed a position paying more than $200,000, but that ourselves. “I live in Mankato, Minnesota. I am this was exceptional.) Mrs. Starkey would charge

48 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 an employer 30 percent of the rst year’s salary as Pets? Are there vast collections of precious objets a placement fee, which she presented as a good requiring meticulous dusting? thing for students hired on a trial basis—fewer The baseline for administration (planning, or- employers might want to pay Starkey’s compara- ganization) is two hours per day for a family of four. tively high fee, but those who did would be less On average, a meal for a family of four takes two inclined to send the Starkey grad back. hours for preparation and cleanup. To run one load I assumed that graduation from Starkey would of laundry and then dry, fold, and put away the ensure me a job, and I didn’t question what at the clothes takes one and three quarter hours. Ironing same time seemed too good to be true. Although a man’s shirt is fteen minutes. Car transportation the admissions process had been extremely rigor- for a family of four equals sixty hours per week. ous, requiring background checks, detailed em- Each formal dinner equals twelve hours. Every acre ployment histories, letters of recommendation, and of landscaped grounds equals six and application essays, when I arrived at the mansion, three quarter hours. it seemed no one had actually read my le. Ms. Bul- lock was barely familiar with it. After dinner that rst Thursday, I drove Doris A good number of students are typically hired Brown to Walgreen’s to buy tape and wrapping on graduating (Mrs. Starkey claims placement paper. Despite Debra Bullock’s injunction against rates as high as 95 percent). Others who may nd speaking a principal’s name, Ms. Brown told me work by the end of the rst year may not necessar- that her rst position had been with Ethel Ken- ily do so through Starkey. And the last category nedy. As a law student at American University, decide (after trying how hard or how long isn’t Ms. Brown had responded to an ad for a summer exactly clear) they aren’t suited for private service. job and was hired to run a household of seventeen Searching the job listings on the Starkey web- at Hyannis Port—“We had two people doing laun- site one afternoon, I saw that in addition to our dry twenty-four hours a day.” At the end of the class there were former graduates waiting in the summer, she returned to Hickory Hill, the Kennedy wings. While cleaning the placement of ce, I estate in Virginia. From there, she went to work for noticed anxiously that there were only eight Mrs. Kennedy’s sister-in-law, Eunice Shriver. listed on a whiteboard—eight jobs. Her only reason for being at Starkey was place- When I asked the placement director about these ment. She had gotten two interviews via Craigslist numbers, he assured me they were with billionaire principals, but Mrs. Starkey had only the hottest, latest prospects. the reputation of nding the best positions at the highest salaries. As I followed Ms. Brown through Debra Bullock told us that our next project the aisles of Walgreen’s, I asked whether she un- was to use the Starkey software “to write a book” derstood why principals felt so entitled. “Sure,” she that would be a vision of our ideal position. “It can said. “If you thought you were changing the world, be whatever you want,” she told us. “It can be a real you’d be the same.” house and family you know, or something you Upstairs in our room, Mr. Palmer was once again imagine.” Anthony D’Amico decided his principal sitting at his desk. “Did you hear what Mark Tol- would be Bruce Wayne. Mary Anne Fowler would lison said at dinner? He told us we didn’t know do hers on the house she’d helped run in Palm what we were getting into. Everyone at that end of Springs. I conjured up as my principals Reid and the table who could hear what he was saying Mimi Williams, who lived in a 12,000-square-foot looked sick. You know, he’s a lawyer. I think this is apartment at 63rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New full disclosure. Before I signed up for this, I talked York City. He was a partner at Goldman Sachs; she, to him several times on the telephone. I ques- a civic leader and philanthropist. I had to decide tioned him very carefully about the jobs. Did they immediately how much staff we would have and of exist? Did they pay well? He kept telling me what what sort. There would be housekeepers, of course, a great career I was choosing. I think and a personal assistant for Mimi, but would there now he’s trying to cover himself.” be a chef or would I do the cooking? How often did they have dinner parties? Would they keep a car in The following morning at the student meet- the city? Would they have a chauffeur? How did he ing, Mary Anne Fowler had grave news for us. get to work? How did they get to their house in the Someone had left a bloody tampon in the powder- Hamptons on weekends? How much did they room trash can without wrapping it in toilet paper. travel and where did they go? Did they own a jet? “This is very serious. What if a guest had looked Happily, the Starkey Household Management in the trash can?” she asked, her face stricken Bible provides formulas and rule-of-thumb base- as she tried to imagine the consequences. We lines for calculating staf ng needs. For example, it had already been scolded at a student meeting takes four hours to clean 2,000 square feet once a about the rapid depletion of clean hand towels week. There are variables that might increase the in the ground-oor powder room; the towels had number of hours. Are there children in the house? to be laundered and ironed, so we students were

FOLIO 49 told instead to use the paper towels in the cabinet face in amazement. “I just can’t tell you what that beneath the sink. means, what a big deal a master French gardener Now a new conversation ensued about the is. I know all the billionaires and multimillionaires, powder room. Perhaps there hadn’t been toilet the real wealth in this country. I have a proposal paper? Who was responsible for the powder room? next week for a Vegas hotel to teach sixty butlers. Whose work rotation was that? Did everyone I have a new agreement with China for education know where the extra rolls of toilet paper were companies throughout China. I’ve had forty offers kept? At what point should a roll be replaced? Half on my desk for reality-television shows. Producers empty? Three-quarters empty? The soon-to-be- are ying in next week, but I’ve made up my mind. exhausted rolls should be put in the cabinet with That’s not my style.” the fresh rolls, and students should make an effort From time to time she would pause to wonder to use the former. Was the roll in the dispenser about “Mr. Smith”; where was Mr. Smith? “You being peaked? Did everyone have to peak the don’t know it,” she conded in us, “but sometimes paper every time they used the toilet? Did everyone I really fall for one of you.” know how to peak toilet paper? At one point, talking about feeling lost, she At our student meeting Friday morning, Debra looked as if she was going to cry. She touched Bullock announced that Mrs. Starkey had decided the track pad of a laptop on the desk, and images the powder room would be off-limits to students; began to appear on the wall behind her, pictures of her ofce was near it, and she didn’t like nding it the school, the staff, and former students. When occupied. From now on, those of us living in the she came to a photo of a handsome black man, a house would use only our own bathrooms. We Starkey student, standing next to a Rolls-Royce, she then proceeded to the powder room for a lesson pretended to swoon, saying what a big crush she had in the three ways to peak a roll of toilet paper. All had on him. “It was really a problem. I nally had to of us crowded around the toilet while arrange a couple of dates for myself to chill out.” Ms. Fowler demonstrated. Then she added, “I could really get a big crush on Mr. Smith. Where is he?” It was going to be a big day in the mansion. In addition to our work rotations and morning class- Upstairs, Gary Smith waved me into his es, and our afternoon exam, we had to turn in the room, where he had his bags packed. “She won’t rst part of our books, and Mrs. Starkey was going place me,” he said. “When I applied, they said they to teach a class after we celebrated her birthday. would place me, but now Mrs. Starkey says I have We gathered in the living room for cake and to come back for four more weeks.” shortly thereafter adjourned to the classroom. “What?” Mrs. Starkey began to tell her story—how she had He shrugged. “She’s manic-depressive.” (A staff moved to Denver, married a schoolteacher, and member would later offer the same casual diagno- had two sons. “I trained in community-services sis with the same shrug.) development. I took God by the scruff of the neck I waited for Doris Brown to come in from taking and asked him for something to do. I left my hus- Mrs. Starkey to dinner. She was leaving the next band ... I was pretty lost, but I knew in my gut morning, and I was eager to get a sense of her that I was meant to do something. I have a world impressions. When she arrived, she was especially vision. I have the energy of a forty-year-old. Why? pleased that she had been able to put in a good Because I’m following my bliss. I get helped every word for me with Mrs. Starkey. “She wanted to single day by the universe and by God. know if you were Old Guard.” “I started peeling the onion, Jungian analysis. “And? ” You may not know about that. The process is to “I told her you were very well-bred.” peel the onion until you get to the core. In my Without Mrs. Starkey’s approval, I realized, the ofce, you’ll see a picture of Golda Meir. I had a chances of being placed were remote, though if dream, six times, of a teapot that kept getting the perfect position came up for a student she didn’t brighter and brighter. The person in the dream like (I hoped, given that already I t that descrip- sent me the message that she was Golda. She lived tion), she would place the student rather than in Denver when she was about sixteen. She was forgo her fee. starting a movement when she was sixteen. I At dinner on my rst Sunday night at the man- moved to Denver when I was nineteen. I found out sion, Tyler Averill recounted how Mrs. Starkey had what I was going to do and have been doing it ever called him over to her chair at her birthday party. since. You can beat me up, throw me away, but I’m “She whispered to me, ‘Are you gay?’ And I not going away.” answered, ‘Yes, Mrs. Starkey, I am.’ She said, She then told us about a client, a billionaire, ‘Good, I thought so.’ I guess she’s thinking about who had a 20,000-square-foot house in the can- placement for me.” yons above Malibu. “He has a master French gar- “A lot of employers specify gay,” said Cheryl dener,” she said, rolling her eyes and slapping her Drecker, echoing my source in Atlanta.

50 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 “Yes, it’s because we’re all so anal,” Mr. Averill Moving on, she said, in a irtatious voice, “I said. I remembered the “rope” on Debra Bullock’s talked to the Kensingtons’ principal in New York. jacket that had driven him, by his own later admis- I think I have something interesting for them.” She sion, half crazy. “And I guess a lot of principals like was teasing Mrs. Kensington with the hope of a to have gay employees so they don’t have to worry job while aunting the prospects of a position in about their teenage daughters.” front of the other students. Given that everyone “And husbands don’t have to wor- at the table was desperate for employment, I found ry about their wives,” Ms. Fowler added. myself as shocked by her performance as by the students who played along by groveling. Monday morning, after our work rotations, I would wake in the mornings in a fury. Why we began our cooking class with Chef, who taught didn’t anyone see what was happening? Mrs. Starkey us knife skills, the difference between small dice, says she’s training us to be professionals but treats us julienne, and brunoise, and how to carry a butcher like servants. I considered trying to incite a revolt, knife safely in a crowded kitchen. We learned but they had paid nearly $17,000 for her eight-week about mise en place—having all your ingredients course, had perhaps even taken out loans. They out and together before beginning to cook. had no choice. We prepared lunch during class, then went to After lunch Mrs. Starkey came to the base- our rooms to change clothes, which on some ment to teach the rst session of a class called days we did two or three times. Then we stood behind our chairs in the dining room for a full fifteen minutes, waiting for Mrs. Starkey to come in. When she nally joined us, she started to talk in her booming voice about the people in Malibu who had the master French gardener. “These people are billionaires,” she kept saying. “Billionaires! I have a big personality. I know that. But I have to have a big personality to stand up to people like this.” She mentioned the Malibuan’s bil- lions so often that at last I asked where the money came from, assuming she would answer in generalities—oil, software, real estate. But she immediately offered up the client’s name, as well as the company from which his wealth derived. Taken by surprise, I repeated the name of the principal back to her. She clapped her hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes with an impish, shame- on-me expression. She had broken a car- dinal rule. She then went on to say that although the house was fabulous, there would be renovation projects. This being California, most of the workers would be Mexican, the Personal Statement, and I noticed that she had and because Mexicans were “macho,” the house what appeared to be the casing of a black bean manager would need to be a man, because Mexicans stuck to one of her front teeth. I gured Tyler Av- wouldn’t respect a woman. “I think Mr. Averill erill was noticing nothing else. I was waiting for would be right for this style of job,” she announced. him to jump to his feet and ask to remove it. “Isn’t Mr. Averill wonderful? Isn’t he wonderful?” Debra Bullock had moved me into Gary Smith’s Why Mr. Averill instead of Mr. Palmer or seat in the front row, so I was sitting directly be- Mr. D’Amico? Why not me? I spoke uent Spanish. fore Mrs. Starkey. “I was raised in the Midwest,” Even more unbalancing than the eeting glimpses she shouted, “which means I’ve got a Puritan work of such tantalizing leads was the fact that some of ethic. I like to work. And I was raised a Catholic. these high-roller principals Mrs. Starkey bandied When I put my name on something, I’d better do about were apparently composites or fabrications it. And when I’m late for something, I feel bad.” designed to test and motivate us. “And you should,” I muttered carelessly.

FOLIO 51 I didn’t think she’d heard and was astonished risen to under-butler), smoking cigarettes and con- when she wheeled on me, wanting to know what spiring outside the kitchen door with O’Brien, the I’d said. evil lady’s maid. Yet that was how I felt when I “I was agreeing with you,” I offered, equivocat- encountered Theresa Swaim, the admissions ad- ing. “If you’re late, you feel bad.” ministrator, while she was having a smoke in the “No, that is not what you said!” she shouted. alley. She had been friendly on the telephone when “You were trying to make me feel bad! You can’t I was applying for the course, and now she asked do that in my place.” whether Mrs. Starkey was setting up any interviews I apologized, but that wasn’t enough. Later that for me. I said there weren’t any I knew of. “Oh, that’s week, Chef torpedoed me in the kitchen. As the too bad,” she said. “You have such a great résumé.” student chef, I had begun preparing lunch during I replied that I was under the impression my morning work rotation, then gone to class for Mrs. Starkey didn’t have time to read résumés. three hours as required. That was how it worked. “She should read them. She has We started the meal, and he nished it while we time to screen all our outgoing email.” were in class. But when I went upstairs, he announced angrily that lunch would be late and As a pack, the students turned on their weak- that it was my fault. It didn’t matter that I had est member. I wasn’t sure who initiated this, but followed his directions or that he had switched a Debra Bullock and Chef began to grimace and recipe; there was no court of appeals. frown whenever Catherine Miller asked a question. Some staff members, the ones who didn’t She wasn’t coping with the stress. She wasn’t sleep- deal directly with the students, seemed to feel ing. Her nerves frayed; she occasionally snapped at other students, and she had a dif cult time listening in class, where she had a propensity to ask the very question that had just been answered. “What is mise en place?” she might say just as Chef nished explaining the term. I did my share of eye-rolling but eventually started to worry for her well-being. The conversation would stop when she walked into the room. The moment she walked out, the sniping would begin. A poisonous mood pervaded the house the day of our rst class in ow- er arranging, the second week of the course. “So there’s going to be a reality- television show after all,” Helga Day announced as we gathered around the big table in the middle of the laundry room. Mark Tollison had described Day as being “really like Mrs. Starkey’s mother,” and there was a discernible similarity. Having worked as Mrs. Star- key’s personal housekeeper for more than twenty years, Ms. Day shared her principal’s facial expressions, affected the same wide-eyed stare of innocence, and tended to scold at great volume. Ms. Day was from Berlin and sounded a bit like Marlene Dietrich. She re- uncomfortable about what was happening. It was ferred often to her advanced age and had a risqué visible on their faces. Why are you submitting to sense of humor, which made one even more aware this? Why are you paying for this? Occasionally of her large, bullet-shaped breasts. She told the they would offer support or sympathy. “None of men in the class she hated for us to “cover [our] this is about you,” Mark Tollison told me. “It’s privates” when we put on aprons. all about her. If the right job comes up for you “Really?” I asked. “A reality show? But Mrs. Star- and she can place you, she’ll forget that any of key said—” this happened.” “Chef thinks Mrs. Starkey’s ripping him off. He’s Watching Downton Abbey, I had never imagined hiring his own publicist. The producers are coming myself as Thomas, the handsome evil valet (now this week.”

52 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 And indeed two producers, a middle-aged man Some of Mrs. Starkey’s favorite students used and a younger woman, arrived at the mansion. the mansion as a safety net between jobs. Mrs. Starkey brought them down to the classroom, Andrew Hoffman, another butler, was back from where we took turns introducing ourselves: a placement with a Houston couple. Hired to work “Mrs. Starkey, Ms. Bullock, honored in Texas, he found himself in Camden, Maine, guests, my name is ...” where his principal, a man in his seventies, entertained guests by ring cannons over his yachts That was the last we heard about a reality as they sailed past the house and staging dogghts show. Mrs. Starkey went on a two-week vacation— over the bay with antique planes. The wife was to Virginia Beach, New York City, or China, de- an entertainer in her own right and made the pending on whom you asked—leaving us to pro- staff address her as Marilyn to help her get into ceed with our classes on dusting, making beds, and character for a one-night performance she was cleaning bathrooms. After we nished scrubbing giving at the local theater, which the couple had a toilet and a tile bathroom oor, Ms. Bullock bought and remodeled for that purpose. To support turned on an ultraviolet light that made the re- these fantasies, Mr. Hoffman needed to work six maining organic matter glow. She taught us how or seven days a week for as long as they wanted to iron a shirt and how to steam clothes (suits him. “It’s what I do,” he said. “People should be steamed and brushed more often than have their hobbies.” they are sent to the dry cleaner, which harms the fabric). We learned to sew on buttons, making sure When Mrs. Starkey returned from vacation, that the thread pattern on the replaced button she stalked through the kitchen, scowling at the matched the pattern on the other ones—it might students. “I know exactly what’s been going on be an X or a square, or an X inside a square, but here,” she announced. “I know exactly who’s hap- under no circumstances should the new button py and who’s unhappy. I could see all of you here.” differ from the others! Designer clothing should We still had our morning meeting and work be sent only to high-end dry cleaners who remove rotations, but we started going on frequent eld buttons for cleaning or wrap them in tinfoil. Cou- trips around Denver—to a store that sold ne ture gowns should be stored at, wrapped in acid- linens, the fur department at Neiman Marcus, a free paper. On hangers, dresses have been known stationer, an art restorer, an Oriental-rug shop. At to stretch in length as much as three inches. Denver’s fanciest dry cleaner, the proprietor ex- “I’ve never been in a house where closets weren’t plained that because of the great care they prac- a major issue,” Ms. Bullock told us. “These closets ticed, customers all over the United States shipped look like stores! Every house I’ve been in has cloth- their clothes there. She pointed to a six-foot stack ing issues. The staff puts away clothes in the wrong of boxes and said they were table linens sent from places.” She discovered on one of her consulting Durango by Colorado’s wealthiest family. As we jobs in Dallas that the principal received what toured Denver’s private-jet terminal, the facility’s seemed like daily deliveries from her personal shop- manager gazed at a beautiful blue-and-white per at Neiman Marcus. The staff put the clothes Beechcraft King Air waiting in a hangar. “We’ve away without the principal ever seeing them. had it six months,” he said, “and the new owner Closets lined with Kevlar now double as safe still hasn’t come to see it.” rooms in mansions, and for clients with extensive To complete our training we would participate wardrobes and multiple addresses there are “cyber in two formal dinners, which would count as a closets.” One company, Garde Robe, offers climate- signicant part of our nal evaluation. At our controlled storage lofts, archiving and preserva- rst practice session, which lasted ve hours, tion, and luggage packing and shipping. With Debra Bullock introduced us to “mirrored ser- access to a “cyber closet,” the client can be in vice,” a kind of choreographed dance in which Nantucket, Aspen, or Paris and easily summon the all six servers—there would be six for twelve sequined Balenciaga stilettos. guests—move simultaneously, following visual Dwight Tjornhom, Mrs. Starkey’s personal as- cues from the captain, who stands between the sistant, gave a class on cars and transportation. A entrance of the butler’s pantry and the principals’ Starkey grad, he had worked as a butler in London head of table, while a wine steward stands at at- and for Henry Kravis and A. Alfred Taubman in tention at the opposite end of the room. Like New York City. Pale and balding, he always looked marionettes, we had to step in on the same foot as if he were trying to disappear. He showed us and bow down with a platter, our left hand how to open a car door, where to stand, and how pushed smartly halfway up our backs. “And do to hold out an arm to offer assistance. If there we speak to the guests we’re serving?” I asked. wasn’t a travel manager on staff, we could engage “If they ask a question, yes, you reply,” Ms. Bul- one through a high-end agency. (Mary Anne Fow- lock answered. ler’s principals had both a travel manager and a The dinners would have nine courses, and we ight department.) would use four different styles of service—French,

FOLIO 53 Russian, English, and American. French was the ceive the same treatment was no consolation. To most dif cult: the waiter must balance a platter in cheer us on, Ms. Bullock assured us, “Mrs. Starkey’s the palm of his right hand while holding a large really good at telling you what you’re worth.” Then, serving tongs in his left hand and leaning down with a small laugh, she added, “She’s the one who to serve—a tricky maneuver unless you’re left- sells you.” handed or ambidextrous. The Russian style is The verbal hazing was rationalized as prepara- relatively easy: the waiter holds the platter in his tion for job interviews, which, to my increasing left hand, and the guest serves his own plate. In dismay, I wasn’t getting. The billionaire in Cali- the English style, the host serves at the head of the fornia with the master French gardener evapo- table and passes plates around, whereas in the rated; he wanted a house manager who was edu- American style, the food arrives at the table al- cated. Mr. Averill, meanwhile, was going to be ready plated. sent to a French-Iranian woman who had a repu- Each table setting would have a place card, tation, per student gossip, for “going through staff.” salad fork, meat fork, sh fork, salad knife, meat This principal had houses in Big Sur, Ojai, and knife, sh knife, soupspoon, charger, wineglasses, Palm Springs, and six Porsche SUVs, two at each water glass, napkin, and individual salt and pepper house. The job would be that of butler/personal shakers. The unbreakable rule of formal table set- assistant, following the principal from house to ting: “Everything must be symmetrically spaced.” house. The Kensingtons had a Skype interview The plates should be one inch from the edge of for a situation that would have required Dolly to the table and at least two feet apart from plate live in Manhattan while Carl lived in the Hamp- center to plate center. The yardsticks came out tons. Not ideal, but nothing came of it anyway. during our second practice session, and we some- The Dreckers had possibilities, but it seemed how spent forty minutes determin- Mrs. Starkey had yet to notice some of ing the true center of the table. the other students.

We began to see more of Mrs. Starkey when The days grew warm as spring came on strong we started our family-tree and “service vision” as- in Denver, and in the rare moments we got to leave signment. For family tree, we examined our per- the mansion, the entire city appeared to be cele- sonal histories to determine the origins of our brating. We spent more and more of our time service hearts, which I interpreted to mean: Find preparing for the rst dinner: planning the menu, the trauma or wound that explains a desire for choosing china patterns and wines, polishing sil- subordination. Debra Bullock told us that ver. That morning, Debra Bullock had us clean the Mrs. Starkey appreciated some drama and tears; chandeliers. To remove the folds from the linen most of us resisted baring our souls, though one of tablecloth, two ironing boards were set up at one the men broke down weeping as he talked about end of the dining table so that the linen could be a death in his family. pressed as it was drawn into place. By the time we Another exercise, “service style,” was a con- nished, the table looked splendid, with crystal tinuation of our book projects. We were to stand and silver and low arrangements of pink tulips. before Mrs. Starkey and the class, introduce our- Mrs. Starkey arrived at about three that after- selves (yet again), recount the experience that noon, carrying on a hanger a gauzy “serape” that quali ed us for service, and describe the position had swirling vivid stripes of orange, green, and we saw ourselves in. What was our service style? black. She had to wear something amboyant, of “Fast-paced, intense, direct”—New York style? course, because the guests were a gay men’s civic “Casual and familiar, with no clear de nition of group. Proceeding to the dining table, eyes dart- roles”—California style? Or “Family and socially ing, she looked for aws. “Now, the main ques- centered, either patriarchal or matriarchal”— tion,” she said, turning to the students. “Does this Southern style? Were we suited for an Old Guard support your principal? Does this support me?” I family (accustomed to servants), a Legacy family feared for a moment that she would demand ev- (inherited wealth), a New Wealth family, or Inter- erything be redone, that we rush out and buy Fi- national Wealth? Would we be estate managers, esta ware, but the assembled students insisted that butlers, valets, or house managers? What job skills the formal table with the delicate pink owers was had we perfected? a perfect setting. Part of the personal-statement course consisted That evening, the pocket doors between the of mock interviews, which the rst student sailed living and dining rooms were closed so that the through with hardly a hitch. I was second up and guests wouldn’t see the table as they arrived. was just getting started when Mrs. Starkey began Mrs. Starkey wore red pumps, black leggings, the shouting, “No, no, no! That’s wrong! Start over!” swirling serape, and a bustier for maximum cleav- The more she shouted, the more ustered and age. Her face stony, she looked miserable, sitting humiliated I became. By the time it was over, I alone in the living room surrounded by her guests, could barely speak, and seeing other students re- all in tuxedos, talking among themselves. My rst

54 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014 assignment for the evening was to assist in serving “It might be genetics. You don’t usually get rich the Starkey house cocktail—Lillet and champagne by being nice.” with a slice of orange. Everyone on the Starkey I dreaded the dinner parties and dreaded even staff was working. Mark Tollison, wearing a busi- more my rotation as house manager, which would ness suit, was on the street parking cars. All the account for the last four days of our course. As students wore black bow ties, black vests over white house manager, in addition to many other duties, shirts, black trousers, and black soft-soled shoes. I had to perform a long list of personal services for The pocket doors opened wide enough for the Mrs. Starkey: prepare a morning brief to place on captain, Tricia Berlin, to step out and read the her desk, place a glass of water on her desk before evening’s menu. As she announced, “Dinner is her arrival, greet her when she arrived, make cof- served,” the doors slid open to reveal the table, fee and tea as requested, deliver mail to her desk, looking more splendid still with the candles lit. put out her pills, clean her eyeglasses, determine The servers lined up in the butler’s pantry her lunch and dinner needs, notify her of when under Ms. Bullock’s supervision. On cue, we led meals would be served, turn her car around so that into the kitchen, which was set up like a com- she could get out of the driveway at night, escort mand center, strips of tape marking where we could her to her car. I also had to sit next to her at the and couldn’t cross. We stopped at the rst strip, dinner table and serve her meals on a tray in her waiting for our signal, then proceeded to a work ofce if she wasn’t coming to the dining room. island, where the soup course waited. Filing back into the butler’s pantry, we waited until Mrs. Starkey nodded to the captain, who pressed gently on the door to the butler’s pantry—our cue to le around the table to our places. Mirrored service might be sublime if your guests are accustomed to it, but otherwise it’s a distraction. Every diner watched us in- tently, trying to gure out how we all knew to move at the exact same moment. We used all four styles of service. After dinner, I went around the living room serving coffee, chocolates, and li- queur. Chef, wearing a tuxedo, had sat at the foot of the table opposite Mrs. Star- key. Now he was talking to some of the men, laughing, enjoying himself. As I passed by, he was saying, “The one thing you never do is lay a hand on a student.” I knew he was discussing Mrs. Star- key when I passed a moment later and he was talking about mug shots.

“What are you going to do when you’ve just started to work and your principal says that she’s told you there are going to be guests and she hasn’t?” Mark Tollison asked us. “What are you going to None of this would have been particularly dif- do when she says she’s told you that you have to cult or unpleasant had it not unavoidably brought pick them up at the airport and she hasn’t? What me into much closer proximity to Mrs. Starkey. The are you going to do when your contract says indelible moment came with me standing in the you’re not supposed to work weekends and they doorway to her ofce as she screamed at Dwight insist you work weekends? That will happen; Tjornhom, who was at the desk facing hers. She they’ll forget the contract as soon as they sign it. had to have a certain computer le immediately. With these extremely rich couples, at least one He looked desperate, his face more ashen even than of them is likely to be crazy.” He advised us to usual as he scrolled through his cell phone looking always have enough money saved to survive three for it. “What good are you?” she yelled at the hap- months’ unemployment. less assistant. “What good are you?” “Why would they be crazy?” I asked. “Is it I stepped away from the door to wait for the the money?” storm to pass, but it didn’t. Mrs. Starkey’s screaming

FOLIO 55 could be heard throughout the house. Steven Ben- wanted. I kept waiting for her to stop me, but when nett, the head of placement, arrived. One of I nished, rather than tear apart my performance, Mrs. Starkey’s mercurial billionaires would con- she turned to Mr. Bennett. “Did you just see what sider hiring one of her people, but only if it hap- I did?” she asked with amazement. pened immediately. Mr. Bennett came and went I had aced my presentation. several times, doing his best to avoid Mrs. Starkey’s At lunch, Ms. Bullock came hurrying in with wrath. I had no idea what to do. I had to be there; an envelope containing my evaluation. “This I had to serve her. Desperate to be helpful, Mr. Ben- will make you happy,” she said. “I changed your nett nally asked Mrs. Starkey if she was going to numbers.” (I ushed with relief; Ms. Bullock want lunch. “Is someone trying to use you?” she later claimed she was merely correcting a book- demanded. “Is someone out there trying to get you keeping error.) to do their job?” The graduation ceremony took place that after- “No. I volunteered,” he answered. noon in the living room. There were guests, a few She nally glanced past him to acknowledge my family members, and friends. In the kitchen, presence. “Mr. Davidson, if you can’t see I’m busy Mrs. Starkey had the students and staff circle then you’re not looking.” around the work table and hold hands. “If any of Like George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Starkey ap- you have been hurt, please forgive us,” she said. peared to me to believe that servants weren’t worth We all led into the living room to introduce having if you had to treat them like human beings. ourselves one more time. “Mrs. Starkey, honored But maybe she, too, was scrambling to make ends guests ...” When she called my name to come up meet and getting bullied by someone and get a certificate, she said, “Well, I never with power. thought this would happen.” I counted three students out of our class who I was counting down the days and the hours left Denver with jobs. The Dreckers were going to until we graduated. And every morning a crisis run a house in Arizona. D’Amico didn’t get a job would loom, something that in any other context as a house manager but had been placed as a cook would be insignicant. A bow had to be tied on a with a family in New Jersey. A rich woman in San package. A pan of brownies had to be baked. In Jose later plucked Catherine Miller off the Starkey retrospect, it all sounds fairly silly, but I had never website to be her companion and personal been so exhausted or demoralized. I could do noth- assistant—a position that lasted three days. Tyler ing right. When I received a text message from my Averill, who ultimately lined up a job in New En- agent saying she had found a publisher interested gland, was allowed to remain in his room at the in my novel, it was like a voice from a distant world. mansion for two months and received payment for That nal week, I realized that despite my pass- housekeeping duties. ing grades, Mrs. Starkey might withhold my cer- For several months, I looked for jobs on my own ticate. She had told me in class that—coming as other members of my class found work in the from egalitarian Austin—I didn’t have the right booming private-service eld. Both Mark Tollison attitude to serve the rich. Although I would still and Steven Bennett had offered to give me recom- have the work experience, I didn’t want to leave mendations, and Bennett called once about a with my ego tattered, and I still hoped to nd a position working for an elderly woman outside job. The day of graduation, we received our nal Boston, but then Bennett left Starkey abruptly. I evaluations from Ms. Bullock, and for the last posted on Craigslist in various cities, and I ew to hurdle we had to clear our nal mock interview Los Angeles for the 2012 Domestic Estate Manag- with Mrs. Starkey and Steven Bennett in the din- ers Association Convention, where there was a job ing room. In my previous evaluations, Ms. Bullock fair. I waited in line to talk to the placement agents had always concluded by saying, “You’re enjoying and learned that my certication wasn’t going to this, aren’t you?” As if that were possible. I had kept get me a position. Employers were looking for my mouth shut, but this time I spoke my mind, experience and invariably wanted to hire locally. telling Ms. Bullock what I thought of the program, It seemed that often the very rich would hire the favoritism, the way students were treated. someone they knew in some other capacity—a I expected some sort of push back, but Ms. Bul- secretary from the ofce, a waiter from their club. lock listened, taking it in, nodding. I felt better Moreover, I learned (though it was little consola- going downstairs, more condent. By this time, I tion), many principals, despite their growing had observed enough students to understand what wealth, were cutting back on domestic staff be- Mrs. Starkey wanted: a straightforward statement cause of the recession. without qualications or complications. When she In the end, I would have been better off asked for a volunteer to go rst, I stood up. I talked taking the advice Mrs. Starkey gave me at about where and how I grew up, my family’s values, graduation—that I should move to Dallas and joining the Peace Corps, work I had done, experi- round up some jobs mowing lawns as a way into ence I had invented, and the kind of position I private service. n

56 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2014