What happens when compulsion, obsession and low self-esteem is fueled by millions of dollars?  Homeless hopelessness.

The New York Times featured a story, “Age of Riches: $6 Million for the Co-op, Then Start to Renovate”, that reports on New Yorkers who spend millions to purchase luxury apartments and then millions more to renovate said dwellings. Because these richie-poos are chasing perfection, which everybody knows just can’t happen, they spend years renovating and not living in the illusive masterpieces. In fact, the article notes that many couples divorce before they ever move into their gazillion dollar piece of artistic perfection.

“Getting the very best of New York real estate is an extension of who they think they are; it goes with the rest of their résumé and portfolio,” said Denise Lefrak Calicchio, a former broker with Sotheby’s International Realty and part of a prominent New York real estate family.

“This trend is not going to go away because there are so many people who want these apartments,” she explained. “There’s the new rich and there’s the old rich. There’s the poor rich and the rich rich.”

Being so intimately familiar with obsessive-compulsive living and shaky self-esteem, I feel for these folks. You move to America from Korea, work your ass off, bank millions and feel like you are defined by your stuff. Too many choices jostle those chemicals in the brain and before you know it you are living in small, white room in a sanitarium. Some people either graduate from the white room at the sanitarium or narrowly escape it by calling their lifestyle "minimalist".

Sorta funny – but at this immediate moment there is not one stitch of furniture in my living room or study. Last week I hosted a dinner party that required all the furniture be moved and replaced by rented tables.  When the rentals were taken away, instead of immediately moving the furniture back (and taking the chair out of my stepdaughter’s shower – she’s away at college) I was paralyzed by indecision as to 1) where to place furniture so it would look perfect, and 2) whether to throw all of the furniture away.

As a result, the only items in those two rooms are rugs, which I’m thinking of rolling up.  Oddly, my entire family likes the empty space.  “This is a great jump-roping room, Mom! I love it!”  First I got rid of the car, now the furniture. Soon, we will be eating only grain and living in a campground…in India.

Comments

[Holmes]

I've known the joy of having my living room full of rented furniture, though in a slightly different way from yours. Years ago before my wife and I were actually married and we were one of those hip co-habitating childfree couples, we had a play in the house we were renting. It was produced by my old theater company. For several weekends in a row, we threw the place open for admission-paying strangers to come in and watch the drama unfold. It was odd acting in a place, and then living in it.