Breeding in Horse Country
It’s Horse Country, and the Old Money lives in mansions the size of hospitals. The one down the street is 23,000 square feet and sits on 4,000 acres. The money is old, and you can tell, because it is running out. The conservatory has been falling to pieces since the Depression and the family can’t raise the two million bucks for repairs.
No one’s going to cry for them, but it is a shame to see this grand dame of a house tattered at its edges. The people there are lovely, with gracious manners and a sense of responsibility. They have hunts and races to finance the estate, which takes an army to run and endless reserves of cash. It’s the ultimate, class conscious money pit.
Houses have names here: Keswick, Grand Oaks, Fox Run.
The New Money names their houses after things they saw in Gone With The Wind. The perfection of their landscaping – and the flawless exteriors of their homes – are flares that indicate the exact position of the New Money. The gruesomely named estates like Tally-Ho and Tara, are also dead giveaways that the money is new, because people with no class name their homes Tara and Tally-Ho.
People who name their homes Tally-Ho should not be allowed in the hunt club, but the money for the hunt club has to come from somewhere since a lot of the Old Money simply doesn’t have money anymore. Those who want to keep the hunt club up and running are forced to rub elbows with the Nouveau Riche Hunt Club set. The Old Money who must engage in the elbow rubbing are as regal as royalty, and look perpetually pained when that which passes for society passes by.
Most of these old estates pre-date Gone with the Wind (which is why none of them are ever named things like Tara) and those that don’t were built by whatever construction company best installs jacuzzis.
There are really only two kinds of people out here: rich and poor.
The Old Money is usually property-rich because Old Money is quiet money, and they don’t carry their wealth on their backs in front of people.
The New Money carries their conspicuous consumption and the ability to engage in it everywhere even to the Piggly Wiggly, because money isn’t nearly as much fun unless you can wave it in the face of someone who makes $12,000 a year and works behind a checkout counter.
OK, there is a middle class out here (like me), but even the middle class is rich compared to an average income base (for the people who don’t live in mansions) of $18,000 per annum. There are people here who live in tin shacks, and who grow their own food, and milk their own goats, and make their own cheese.
Those who live in homes that sit on concrete blocks often name their homes as well. Sometimes, the homes are guarded by stone lions or concrete gargoyles. The grander the name of the home, the more likely it is to be mobile.
We are several hours from Washington DC, so in addition to the horse country money, we encounter the Washington DC money, the source of much of the New Money.
New Money likes to have a place in the country. Why is anyone’s guess, because New Money clearly does not want to live in the country. New Money would very much like a mall within reasonable driving distance. Or, at least close enough to reach by private helicopter.
The migration of the DC elite to Horse Country is the source of much of the area revenue, and much of the area gossip. Washington DC is the power chakra point of the world. Power and money are always entertaining in a Dominick Dunne sort of way. People like to hear about rich people getting their comeuppance.
Rich people who get their comeuppance often come in the form of foolish men who marry trophy wives who are no trophy.
It is not enough for a trophy wife to look good, she must have other qualities to recommend her. It doesn’t hurt to speak a few languages as well as to know which fork to use. A true trophy wife is a torch at which the husband can light his wick while basking in the reflected glow of his gorgeous, sophisticated wife. A wife who doesn’t have to lift a finger to do dishes always has time for a bikini wax, tennis lessons, and studies in advanced Arabic, a handy skill in Washington DC social circles these days. The trophy wife is expected to be gracious and well educated, as well as beautiful.
One of our local New Money cattle barons has a wife who is something, but she’s no trophy. We’ll call her Lil.
Lil is a beautiful woman. She is 26 years old, and she doesn’t have an ounce of fat on her, except where a woman should be fat, and the jury is out on whether or not the padding is natural. Lil has a very rich husband who decorates her richly.
Lil is also the town pump. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
