Copyright © 2017
by Ralph F. Couey
Today I drove down to Laguna Beach to do my walking, which probably sounds odd to you. I try to vary my walking routes to keep the activity from becoming stale. One favorite destination is the coast because I love the ocean. Unfortunately, where we are staying is in the far northern reaches of the LA area, so getting to any of the beaches take a pretty good drive. One of my favorites is the town of Laguna Beach. It's a pretty place, to be sure, but along with it's tony neighbor up the coast, Newport Beach, is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Around there, the cheap homes go for about four million. Dollars.
But it is a place of beauty and is thus a wonderful place to visit on a sun-splashed California morning. Those uber-priced homes attract similarly well-heeled clientele, most of whom are actually fairly nice. But one of the fun things about being in this area involves my love affair with exotic automobiles. Anytime spent in any of the expensive beach communities of Los Angeles will net the discriminating watcher views of spectacular hardware usually only seen in person at auto shows. Today's three-hour walk between Laguna and Aliso Beaches produced some fruitful watching.
The first one was a bright yellow Ferrari headed south on California Route 1. Another car in front made a sudden deceleration, apparently a last-minute decision on a left turn. The Ferrari's driver expressed his vexation through a sudden and very noisy downshift, sending the engine into a hair-raising skin-tingling growling roar of epic proportions, as only a Ferrari can do. The Italian beauty then made a quick zig and danced around the other car like Barry Sanders around a linebacker before accelerating on down the hill. Made me smle.
A little later, at a signal light were two Rolls Royces facing each other on either side of the red light, one very new, the other one a vintage model from the early '60's, one that resembled, except for the paint job, John Lennon's Rolls. When the light changed, the two glided forward in near silence in stark contrast to the Ferrari. I continued down the road, taking in the sights of the incredible homes lining the shoreline. Some were small and simple, others were larger and more ostentatious. Passing one where the driveway was below the street level, parked there was another Ferrari and a Maserati sedan. The front door of this beautiful home was ajar, and I could see straight through to a wall of glass beyond which lay a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean.
Curious, I looked through the Zillow app on my phone. If you blow the map page up enough, the estimate of value for homes not for sale are displayed. For this magnificent property? $18 million, not including the rolling stock. And it's very likely that this wasn't their primary residence.
You can stand on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and look across to the other side and gain an appreciation for the gulf that lies between those of great wealth and everybody else. I remember walking through the Ferrari dealership that used to reside inside the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, where the used cars were displayed in a museum-like setting. At one point, I came upon two men, one a customer, the other a salesman. As I passed, the customer said, "This will be a cash deal, so I won't pay more than three hundred thousand." It was a humbling moment.
There are basically two types of wealth, inherited and made. In the first case, somebody in the past made a pile of money, invested wisely, and managed to heir and trust fund the cash to succeeding generations. Everybody knows about the Kennedy's. Joseph P., a shrewd businessman and an investor with an incredible sense of timing, made a pile during the bull markets of the 1920's. When he sensed the crash was coming, he shorted those stocks. He was worth $4 million on the day of the crash. Post-crash, he snapped up bargain basement real estate and by 1935 his net worth was over $180 million, over three billion in today's money. That was enough to fund political campaigns for his sons, and a life of ease for his grandchildren. There are hundreds of other families like the Kennedy's.
Then there are the ones that attained success on their own terms, the classic American story of starting out with nearly nothing, and achieving tremendous success. There are thousands of stories like this one. Anyway, what results is a mix of old and new money, both loathing each other, inhabiting homes the size of medium-sized hotels and vacation homes in places like Laguna Beach.
For those of us of far more humble means, we can only admire from a distance and shake our heads in awe and disbelief. And, to be honest, envy.
Being wealthy isn't just about sipping champagne cocktails on a deck overlooking the ocean, or skiing in Vail. Wealth of that magnitude has to be managed, and that is more than a full-time job, especially in a volatile investment environment. As nice as it would be to have all that money, I'd rather do without the responsibility and headache.
Still, most dreams are about success, money, and neat possessions, like a million dollars wrapped up in the two vehicles in the driveway. Since dreams like that are rarely grounded in any kind of reality, we envision only the fun things. And continue to dream.
Which is why you're likely to find a lottery ticket somewhere in almost every wallet in America.
What the heck? It could happen...
The first one was a bright yellow Ferrari headed south on California Route 1. Another car in front made a sudden deceleration, apparently a last-minute decision on a left turn. The Ferrari's driver expressed his vexation through a sudden and very noisy downshift, sending the engine into a hair-raising skin-tingling growling roar of epic proportions, as only a Ferrari can do. The Italian beauty then made a quick zig and danced around the other car like Barry Sanders around a linebacker before accelerating on down the hill. Made me smle.
A little later, at a signal light were two Rolls Royces facing each other on either side of the red light, one very new, the other one a vintage model from the early '60's, one that resembled, except for the paint job, John Lennon's Rolls. When the light changed, the two glided forward in near silence in stark contrast to the Ferrari. I continued down the road, taking in the sights of the incredible homes lining the shoreline. Some were small and simple, others were larger and more ostentatious. Passing one where the driveway was below the street level, parked there was another Ferrari and a Maserati sedan. The front door of this beautiful home was ajar, and I could see straight through to a wall of glass beyond which lay a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean.
Curious, I looked through the Zillow app on my phone. If you blow the map page up enough, the estimate of value for homes not for sale are displayed. For this magnificent property? $18 million, not including the rolling stock. And it's very likely that this wasn't their primary residence.
You can stand on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and look across to the other side and gain an appreciation for the gulf that lies between those of great wealth and everybody else. I remember walking through the Ferrari dealership that used to reside inside the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, where the used cars were displayed in a museum-like setting. At one point, I came upon two men, one a customer, the other a salesman. As I passed, the customer said, "This will be a cash deal, so I won't pay more than three hundred thousand." It was a humbling moment.
There are basically two types of wealth, inherited and made. In the first case, somebody in the past made a pile of money, invested wisely, and managed to heir and trust fund the cash to succeeding generations. Everybody knows about the Kennedy's. Joseph P., a shrewd businessman and an investor with an incredible sense of timing, made a pile during the bull markets of the 1920's. When he sensed the crash was coming, he shorted those stocks. He was worth $4 million on the day of the crash. Post-crash, he snapped up bargain basement real estate and by 1935 his net worth was over $180 million, over three billion in today's money. That was enough to fund political campaigns for his sons, and a life of ease for his grandchildren. There are hundreds of other families like the Kennedy's.
Then there are the ones that attained success on their own terms, the classic American story of starting out with nearly nothing, and achieving tremendous success. There are thousands of stories like this one. Anyway, what results is a mix of old and new money, both loathing each other, inhabiting homes the size of medium-sized hotels and vacation homes in places like Laguna Beach.
For those of us of far more humble means, we can only admire from a distance and shake our heads in awe and disbelief. And, to be honest, envy.
Being wealthy isn't just about sipping champagne cocktails on a deck overlooking the ocean, or skiing in Vail. Wealth of that magnitude has to be managed, and that is more than a full-time job, especially in a volatile investment environment. As nice as it would be to have all that money, I'd rather do without the responsibility and headache.
Still, most dreams are about success, money, and neat possessions, like a million dollars wrapped up in the two vehicles in the driveway. Since dreams like that are rarely grounded in any kind of reality, we envision only the fun things. And continue to dream.
Which is why you're likely to find a lottery ticket somewhere in almost every wallet in America.
What the heck? It could happen...
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