Globe gives you the view:
"In Boston’s ultra-luxury condo market, what does $63,000 buy? A marble sink top — for the bathroom" by Beth Teitell Globe Staff May 03, 2018
By the time I got to the master bath, with its radiant-heated floors, free-standing egg-shaped tub I initially mistook for an art installation, and a $63,000 slab of marble topping the two-sink vanity — so buttery it looked poured — I was almost crying.
Crying for all I didn’t have, for all I would never have, for all a socially minded person should not covet:
A private elevator that opens right into my foyer, and beyond that, a life that is discreet and curated and staffed with smiling folks delighted to walk my dog on a day that is too cold for me to go out myself even though I own a wardrobe of Canada Goose, and so free from financial concerns that I’d laugh at a condo fee that could hit $15,000 a month.
Ha ha ha. I threw my head back and laughed, that’s how mad I’d gone at the showroom for One Dalton, just one hour into what would become a three-day tour of sales galleries for luxury condos under construction in Boston. Wait! Have I learned nothing? At this price point they are not “condos.”
They are “residences.” “Estates.” “Homes.”
Even more than the views — which are heartbreakingly fabulous, don’t get me wrong — what today’s luxury developers are selling is lifestyle. The chance to buy your way out of life’s annoyances, which include, but are not limited to: finding a private chef, getting stationery with your new address, going to a gym with people who do not live in a “residence,” “estate,” or “home.”
Boston, where money once prided itself on being understated, has gone Kardashian. The pricey new buildings are all about gleaming windows and five-star service and indoor-outdoor living once associated with LA, not the Hub.
Wouldn’t you want to weep, too, if I told you that the developer building One Dalton, the Back Bay residential tower where a penthouse reportedly sold for $40 million, spent $7.5 million to construct a temporary showroom?
It’s not even a real living space — it’s a model constructed on the second floor of the Four Seasons Hotel Boston across from the Public Garden. But consider: 6 miles away, in Mattapan, that same money would buy 20 single-family homes, according to 2017 median sales figures from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
How would you feel if I told you that Pier 4, the luxury building rising on the old Anthony’s Pier 4 site, where the 10 penthouse homes go from $7 million to $14 million, has a concierge who works full time at the development already — in the showroom?
So what is that lifestyle?
It’s a life where every need is handled. You live in Boston, but a Disney version. If all you knew of the city was what you saw in the marketing materials, you’d think the entire town consisted of: athletes rowing on the Charles; slim people laughing at some unheard joke; indoor-outdoor furniture, pools, and fire pits; and Harvard, but even as they sell Boston hard, a parallel part of the developers’ pitches involves never needing to venture outside your cloistered neighborhood in the sky and actually going to Faneuil Hall (thank goodness) or interacting with actual Bostonians.
The new luxury buildings tout in-house gyms and therapy rooms, private spas and pools, screening rooms and, in some buildings, a place for your dog to go the bathroom indoors.
At One Dalton, where the residences will be above a new Four Seasons hotel, the amenity package includes “service closets,” two-doored spaces that allow a service person to drop off your package via one door, and you to retrieve it, privately, through the second door.
At Pier 4, there will be a “runner” on staff. “If you forgot hairspray, they’ll go off premises to do an errand,” the PR person said, as I stifled a sob and realized I am my own runner.....
Some would call it a go-fer, and you need an MBA first.
Then you can work at CBS, where you are even a loser even when you Winn.
--more--"
After touring the ultra-luxury At EchelonSeaport, another luxury property under construction, it was time to stop for lunch:
"Irene Cook, who lives above La Casa De Pedro in the Seaport District, said her issues with the struggling Venezuelan restaurant have nothing to do with the race and ethnicity of the owners or their patrons. She said the food is not that good and the drinks are too expensive, but Nicholai Mitchko, another resident, said he goes there all the time, especially for the food. The differences of opinion are playing out following a Globe report on La Casa De Pedro’s financial struggles since its opening 18 months ago and its fight with its landlord, Waterside Development Group LLC, which wants the restaurant out....."
Here's your drink (oops, $pilled it) and plate (along with the bill)!
Related:
"Welcome to 2018, when people are living so long that baby boomers, the original helicopter parents, have helicopters of their own. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. A growing number of middle-aged folks — accustomed to directing their teenagers and young adults’ lives — are also on the receiving side of the equation. In today’s world, you’re never too old to be somebody’s baby....."
Or b*tch.
