Here’s How Much It Costs to Maintain a Mansion

When we read about celebrity home purchases, we usually pay attention to the eye-popping sums of money they drop to acquire their new abodes. Yet a manse’s upkeep can also cost homeowners a pretty penny.

Heritage Estate Management, which provides household staffing and management services for homes on the West Coast, says keeping those mega-manses in pristine condition takes a lot of work, according to Insider—and needs a large staff to get the job done.

Housekeepers, for example, can make $30 to $35 per hour, chefs can earn $50 to $100 an hour, and butlers and nannies can make a staggering $100,000 a year, Huber explained. These sums add up: A staff of 20 people can set property owners back $5,000 a day—or $1.8 million a year. Although frequency of service can vary; some homeowners may want help a couple times a month, while others may want constant service.

“These homes run like a well-oiled machine,” Jenny Greenwood Huber, Heritage Estate Management’s owner and founder, says. “At this level, it’s usually a business in its own right.”

Click here to read the full article.

Take Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s $200 million purchase of California’s most expensive home ever, a stunning 30,000-square-foot residence. Such a property would require work that couldn’t be accomplished by only two people, especially if that couple was busy with touring, conducting deals, and engaging in other entertainment industry activities, according to Heritage Estate Management.

“That’s like a hotel at that point,” Huber said. She says a home of that size would require at least 10 rotating housekeepers, two to four housemen, full-time gardeners, a trio of rotating chefs, many butlers, chauffeurs, and, if necessary, tutors and nannies.

The biggest house Huber has provided staffing for was a 70,000-square-foot secondary residence. “When they came into town, we would have 20 people added in a temporary capacity,” she said. “It was housekeepers, butlers, ladies’ maids, chefs, and all of that, and it would be for three weeks. Just a massive team alongside the skeleton team that we helped put together.”

Looks like it takes a village to run a mansion.