We're moving from the UK to NYC in a few months and I've started doing a preliminary search for an apartment or townhouse. I have to say, however, I'm a bit puzzled; where do you people keep your staffs? Certainly you have domestic help in homes over 3,000 square feet, but from the floor plans I've seen online, Americans seem to make no provisions for them. Is all of your help live-out? And even... [more]
We're moving from the UK to NYC in a few months and I've started doing a preliminary search for an apartment or townhouse. I have to say, however, I'm a bit puzzled; where do you people keep your staffs? Certainly you have domestic help in homes over 3,000 square feet, but from the floor plans I've seen online, Americans seem to make no provisions for them. Is all of your help live-out? And even if they are live-out, certainly there needs to be some provision at some point during the day for their privacy? We have a modest full-time staff (butler, housekeeper, cook), but in even your largest homes I see no provisions for staff lodging, much less common areas for staff to disappear to during the day so that both they and their employers are afforded some degree of privacy. And it's increasingly difficult to find a home without the "open kitchen" curiosity; integrating the kitchen into the living areas makes it impossible for adequate staff/family separation, particularly during entertaining. Or am I just looking in all the wrong places?
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