Quarantine is looking green for the ultra-wealthy.
Some have been practicing their backswing right from their backyard and having home putting greens installed on their properties, The Wall Street Journal's Beth DeCarbo reported. Paul Johnson, owner of Tour Greens Mid-Atlantic, which installs backyard putting greens in the northeast, told DeCarbo that inquiries increased from eight or nine per week to 15 per day when the pandemic first hit.
"The cycle has been insanity," he said. "We haven't missed a day of work. It was like a switch flipped."
The typical backyard putting green costs $30,000, Johnson told DeCarbo, double what it did in 2017 because customers are increasingly going all out with requests. He said he's built greens exceeding 12,000 square feet at $15 to $25 per square foot.
But putting greens aren't the only luxury outdoor amenity the ultra-rich are bringing to life during quarantine. Americans have become more focused than ever on their living spaces at large, reported Mark Ellwood for Business Insider. The wealthy are prioritizing outdoor expansion, treating gardens and terraces like an extra room, particularly in urban areas like New York City. They're also trying to bring the outdoors inside in the form of living walls and vertical gardens.
When it comes to interiors, "practical design is shaping up to be a new hallmark of luxury," Ellwood wrote. This is popping up in forward-thinking design plans for expanded storage space.
Consider the additional double pantry Brooklyn-based architect and interior designer Adam Meshberg added to one attorney's townhouse in the event the owner has to cook at home again for an extended period of time.
Utility rooms, too, are becoming a new lockdown luxury as the wealthy seek to transform them into sumptuous laundry rooms. Texas-based designer Melissa Morgan told Ellwood she helped one couple do just that: The couple sent their housekeeper home on full pay to self-quarantine and started handling their own laundry for the first time.
