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| A bouquet
of flowers in the dead of winter is a luxury Ladue Florist
offers its customers. |
LIFE’S LITTLE LUXURIES
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The host
sat down at his magnificent grand piano and flawlessly played a
rhapsody for his guests. He’d never had a lesson in his life. The
pre-programmed, fully computerized piano played the piece for him
as he moved his hands over the keys.
The shopper entered the comfortable department-store dressing room
where numerous completely accessorized, shoes-to-hats outfits were
arranged. All she had to do was try things on and send them home—without
shopping at all.
At the florist’s on a dreary winter day, a customer found buckets
filled with branches of apple blossoms and pussy willows, plus jonquils
and tulips. She bought an assortment to fill her home with signs
of springtime.
A player grand piano, a personal shopper, a bouquet of tulips in
December. They’re all real luxuries. But no matter how you imagine
luxury, it’s “something that’s not everyday,” says Bryan Young of
Catering Plus. “You enjoy it and it seems like it’s supposed to
be that way all the time, although you wake up the next day and
know you probably won’t have it again.”
Here’s a look at some local luxuries and who’s buying them.
BAUBLES AND BLOOMS
Luxury is something that causes “the look you see on someone’s face,”
says Simon Katz of Simon’s Jewelers. “Women can get excited about
a simple pair of earrings. Men can get excited about watches. For
us that’s the limit of our emotion in a jewelry store.”
And it’s not just one watch that evokes a man’s response, but more
recently, “men like to have a collection of watches, especially
if the time pieces are unique” says Bob Beumer of Hamilton Jewelers.
That could include a Patek Philippe watch, say one of only two made
in 1932. “That would easily sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars,”
Beumer says. “Or you can pick up a Patek Philippe for a mere $6,500,
or pay up to $200,000 “if you want a lot of bells and whistles,”
he adds. “Of course they’re all handmade and have a lot of jewels.”
Another top-of-the-line brand, Rolex, is available for $3,000. “You
can also buy one for $35,000 in platinum with a diamond or two on
the dial and that’s a fine luxury too,” Beumer says.
He defines luxury as “the style you want to present.” A good example
is diamonds. “There are diamond necklaces with 10, 12 or 15 carats
like movie stars wear. I’ve sold those, but for a lot of my customers
that’s too gaudy,” Beumer says. “However, they’ll buy a nice colored
stone piece for $3,000 to $4,000. Or a simple two-carat diamond
pendant they can wear with shorts.”
Diamonds have always been associated with luxury and extravagance,
Katz says. “That’s due to their rarity, the idea of it lasting forever,
all of those things we’ve been brought up to believe.”
For some people it takes a lot less than diamonds to satisfy their
desires for luxury. In fact, $5 buys a lovely, little bouquet on
Five Dollar Fridays at Ladue Florist, says Marianne Przetak. “Certainly
there are times you want to send someone three dozen long-stemmed
roses,” she says, “but we also try to offer luxury at an affordable
price.”
Przetak points out the dictionary says a luxury is something unnecessary
to life and health. “Yet there are people who feel having fresh
flowers in the home is absolutely necessary to their lives and health,”
she says. Those customers treat themselves to a standing order of
a weekly or monthly box of flowers, from $35 up to several hundred
dollars. “It’s a wonderful luxury to expect flowers regularly,”
Przetak says.
THEY'LL DO IT FOR YOU
Purchasing a rare wristwatch is one way to buy the luxury of time.
Another is to hire others to take care of the things you don’t want
to take care of yourself. For some, calling on a caterer falls into
that category.
A
customer admires a potential luxury purchase at Simon’s
Jewelers in Clayton. |
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“People hire us to prepare food they wouldn’t fix themselves or
order in a restaurant,” says Young of Catering Plus. He means things
like foie gras stuffed in French cheese puffs, French rack of lamb,
handcrafted domestic or imported cheeses made by small farms, lobster
bouillabaisse and whole lobsters. Young says a special presentation
adds to the luxury of the event, too, from garnishes of fresh herbs,
unusual greens or miniature or out-of-season fruits and vegetables,
to long-stemmed Italian artichoke hearts, different types of honey
and fig essence.
Luxury also is accomplished with nice crystal and silver, specialty
linens and high-end china, “not just white plates,” Young says.
Better wines, frequently from the hosts’ own wine cellar, also contributes
to the sumptuousness.
Besides farming out cooking, even occasionally, another luxury for
a lot of people is to avoid shopping. That’s the idea behind the
Personal Touch wardrobing service at Nordstrom. Spokesman John Bailey
explains store consultants can help customers put together a complete
wardrobe. “Customers work with a personal shopper who will ask about
their lifestyle and preferences. Then she’ll search the store to
find the right shoes, clothing and accessories and put them all
in a dressing room. The customer just comes in and makes her selection,”
Bailey explains. “It’s a real luxury and doesn’t cost a thing.”
For those who really don’t like to shop, Nordstrom has a service
that makes shopping at least tolerable: a live piano player at a
big Steinway grand piano. “Each pianist plays different types of
songs and they even take requests,” Bailey says. “It’s definitely
not elevator music.”
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A personal shopper prepares clothes for a customer
to try on as a part of Nordstrom’s Personal Touch
wardrobing—“a real luxury that doesn’t
cost a thing.” |
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For the ultimate luxury, someone to do everything for you, call
Renee Joshu at St. Louis Concierge. She will send a gift basket,
get your groceries, drop off dry cleaning, wait for the cable TV
guy, plan day trips for houseguests, even plan and execute your
wedding (including the venue, cake, catering, music, flowers, photographer,
hair, honeymoon, even the dress).
“We’ll find window washers for those giant new houses that have
a million windows,” Joshu says. “We have the resources for whatever
challenges you’re facing.”
LUXURIOUS
LIVING
Those
in the luxury business enjoy luxuries too. Here are their
personal ideas of special treats:
Bob
Beumer, jeweler: “Luxury is a nice quiet vacation
with my wife. Time with my family, that’s a luxury!”
Simon Katz, jeweler: “Luxury is spending time with
my family. I don’t get to do enough of that. Remember, I’m
in retail!”
Marianne Przetak, florist: “My luxuries are experiences—traveling
and just getting away. I also consider it a luxury to stay
up late and sleep late.”
Bryan Young, caterer: “I save a few pennies to buy
art, mainly contemporary works on paper. I also collect antique
French posters, something I picked up from Herb Balaban for
whom I worked for 18 years.”
Paul Kapplinger, electronics consultant: “I love the
great stereo listening experience, as though I were at the
live concert. High-end audio equipment makes my world go round.”
Howard Kessler, musical instrument dealer: “To me
it’s a real luxury to alter-nate between working on the house
a couple of years and taking off on elaborate vacations.”
Renee Joshu, concierge: “Luxury to me is the freedom
to choose what I spend my time doing. Maybe I’ll work all
weekend but on Tuesday I won’t do anything. Having a swimming
pool at home would also be a great luxury.”
John Capps, automobile dealer: “Every year I go
on an annual motorcycle trip with the guys. It’s not a luxury
trip, but it’s a real luxury to get on the road with other
Harley riders, hit the biker bars and pretend to be something
I’m not.” |
AT HOME, ON THE ROAD
“Everything we sell is considered a luxury,” says John Capps of
Plaza Motors. “In fact the cars we sell are defined that way by
the industry.” So what makes that Mercedes 600 or Z8 BMW or twin-turbo
Porsche so luxurious that people will pay more than $125,000 to
own one?
“These cars are engineered in such a way that they’re really a great
value for the price,” Capps says. “They’re the safest cars on the
road and come with all the luxury accoutrements you’d expect—or
not!” including rear cameras that show you if you’re backing into
a curve, up to 15 air bags, double-plated glass windows and top-grade,
butter-soft leather upholstery.
Capps says customers wait up to two or three years for one of these
cars. “They buy a smaller Mercedes while they’re waiting for their
600 to arrive!” Any car will get you from point A to point B, Capps
concedes. “But sometimes you reach a point in life where you feel
you have earned the finer things and you deserve them,” he says.
Plaza Motors’ luxury cars come with world-class sound systems but
with a few components from Ultimate Electronics you can have a system
that’s out of this world. Imagine your luxury auto enhanced with
TV monitors in the headrests, integrated video game systems with
wireless headphones and navigation systems.
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Plaza
Motors. Everything they sell is luxury. (Left to
right): Sales employees—Tom Burnett and Karen
Lowery. |
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“You can spend as much as or more than you paid for the car,” says
Paul Kapplinger of Ultimate Electronics. He adds, you also could
spend more than you paid for your house on a home-theatre system
with a 100-inch plasma screen TV with eight speakers, DVD and satellite
technology, digital hard drive recorders, digital high-definition
VCRs and TVs. “You can go into any room and hear different music
or watch a different program, all tied to a central location.” You
can even integrate your big-screen plasma TV to your computer,”
Kapplinger says. “We have a customer who’s a doctor, who looks at
x-rays on his home system, then switches over to a movie.”
Another source of luxurious music is a piano. “For most people a
grand or baby grand piano are still luxuries,” says Howard Kessler
of Ludwig Music House. A low-end baby grand is a mere $7,000. Or
you could pick up The Bosendorfer, a grand piano hand-made in Vienna,
for $50,000 to $100,000. Kessler sells 10 to 12 a year to “very
good pianists who have the incomes to buy one, or non-players who
will buy one as a piece of art.” Each takes 62 weeks to make.
But you have to actually play The Bosendorfer. For superior luxury,
choose a Yamaha Disklavier that plays by itself. Kessler sells several
a year at $15,000-plus each. “These are very high-tech player pianos.
Even the pedals go up and down,” Kessler says. He explains you can
record what you play, put it on a CD and send it to someone who
can play it on his computer. “You also can pop in a CD of an entire
orchestra and play along with it,” he says. Best of all you can
amaze your guests thanks to the Disklavier’s Smart Key technology.
“Put in a CD and the keys will wiggle to indicate the note you hit,”
Kessler says. “It’s like following the bouncing ball.”
LUXURY
IN ROUND NUMBERS
Handmade Patek Phillippe wristwatch: $200,000
Box of flowers: $40 to $250
Personal Touch wardrobing service at Nordstrom: free
Bosendorfer hand-made Viennese piano: $100,000
Yamaha Disklavier player grand piano: $15,000
Sit-down dinner for 10 to 20 guests by Catering Plus:
$75 to $100 per person
600 Mercedes Benz: $125,000
Mercedes SL: $85,000 to $100,000
Home theatre system: $1,500 to $100,000 |
Pam Droog is a frequent contributor to St. Louis Commerce Magazine.
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