In the mid-1990s, Microsoft employees were working as hard as ever and the stock price was soaring. But a shift had occurred. People were taking more notice of their growing net worth. Some were setting work phones to speed dial the information-line at the Seattle Times for up-to-the-minute stock quotes. Others were creating spreadsheets behind closed office doors. When plugging the day’s stock price into a personalized grid indicated hundreds of thousands of dollars had been made in a week, it was hard not to take notice—and rejoice. In fact, celebrations were beginning to spill into the halls. A guy on our test team had started blowing a horn every time the stock price went up a dollar, and many days, it sounded like quitting time every hour.
Not only were employees tracking their skyrocketing wealth and becoming increasingly vocal about their good fortune, many were spending big. A few outliers had been driving Lamborghinis and Ferraris for years, but a whole new crop of Pathfinders, Miatas, and Saabs was showing up in the parking lots. Employees in their late twenties and early thirties were buying houses too, snapping up new-construction monstrosities in the suburbs around Redmond and purchasing places in Seattle normally reserved for the well-established.
With so many employees cashing in, when David and I attended a party at the new home of a software developer in his group, neither of us was surprised to be knocking on the door of a French château. Within a gated community, boasting a turret, the house was not our style, but Rick, the owner, was pleased. He welcomed us inside and for a few awkward moments, the three of us stood in the foyer, Rick looking out of place in his cutoff shorts, and me gazing up at the vaulted three-story ceiling and crystal chandelier.
“Come in, join the party,” Rick finally said.
He showed us into the kitchen, past gleaming granite countertops and an eight-burner stove, and through an expansive family room. We continued toward the back and onto a sprawling wooden deck, our footsteps echoing off the hardwood floors and cream-colored walls. Except for a college futon, some pillows, and a few empty Domino’s pizza boxes on the floor, the house was empty.
“That’s weird,” I said to David on our drive home.
Just as I’d been surprised by the home of Bill Gates, I was mystified by Rick’s place. Why was someone with so much money sitting on the floor, eating pizza out of boxes? I thought the rich were all leading spectacular lives in elegantly decorated, well-maintained homes. But I was learning that millions of dollars didn’t necessarily lead a person to start living a glamorous lifestyle. Money didn’t impart good taste or an interest in interior design, and didn’t come with a how-to manual, either.
Like many at Microsoft in 1994, Donna and Matt were cashing in options. Recently engaged and preparing for a life together, they had sold Matt’s 900-square-foot bungalow and purchased a 4,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a panoramic view of Lake Washington. Their house was incredible—and clearly not the norm for most young couples who were just starting out. Similarly, Lynn and Adam, who had recently become husband and wife, had just purchased an Arts and Crafts home on a high-end street. Meanwhile, David and I were still renting two separate apartments, lugging clothes and milk from one to the other.
With our friends having made the move from renting to owning, I shouldn’t have been surprised when David announced he wanted to buy a house. But my feelings were hurt. A house was a big step. Weren’t we a team? Why was he considering such a big purchase without first consulting me? Then, seeing the mischievous look in his eyes, believing he just wanted to have some fun, when he suggested we go house hunting together, I agreed to play along.
Just three years earlier, working in advertising, counting every penny, scraping together rent, I would never have even thought to look at houses. Like most single women in their mid-twenties in Seattle, I couldn’t have afforded to buy one. But with Microsoft options, surrounded by friends and co-workers who were spending big, it sounded reasonable to shop for a house. It also sounded like fun.
Breezing past the cemented relationship status our friends had achieved, David and I talked about the houses they had chosen. We liked the character and charm of Donna and Matt’s place and wanted to be within walking distance of shops and restaurants like Lynn and Adam. With our friends’ homes our benchmarks, we strolled through our neighborhood, looking for a first home—nothing too big or too small, but something just right for a nice, young, professional couple.
Seeing a huge, turn-of-the-century house with FOR SALE signs on the front lawn, we walked up the front path, and in the open door. Why not take a look? The entry was grand, with high, plaster ceilings and dark hardwood floors. A carved mahogany staircase on our left circled up to a second floor. To the right, the living room boasted leaded-glass windows and stately antiques. Under different circumstances, I might have looked over at David, thinking “if only” or “maybe someday.” As it was, I had no interest. Our stock options allowed us to purchase the house outright in cash, but I wasn’t considering the freedom we had to pick and choose, or contemplating our privilege, musing about how nice it was to have money. Quite the opposite. I didn’t see myself as rich and didn’t want anything big and flashy. My ideal first home was a small, cozy place that would take time to fix up, requiring my husband and me to paint, put up wallpaper, and spend weekends at home improvement stores. I’d long imagined a first home as a project, a shared goal, and a way to build a life together. David and I weren’t fifty years old. We weren’t a family of five. We weren’t even engaged. A half-million-dollar house was completely incongruous with who we were, how we lived, and my vision.
As if to verify we were in completely the wrong place, a realtor in a tailored white suit and tasteful heels, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed and pulled back in a bun, entered the room. Her eyes slid from our jeans to our tennis shoes as she gave us an obligatory welcome, telling us she needed to go outside to arrange her signs. Looking around, noting a Louis Vuitton purse on a chair and pegging her as the owner of the silver Mercedes sedan out front, as she dismissed us, I dismissed her too. She looked typical of the rich: obnoxious, arrogant, and image-conscious. I’d learned about people like her from visiting my grandparents at their place on Lake Michigan.
When my mother was a girl, she spent vacations at her family’s cottage in Wequetonsing, a summer community three hours from where she lived in Flint. She’d loved sailing with her father and swimming in the lake. But when I was a girl and our family visited Wequetonsing, my mother had seemed ill at ease in the upper-class surroundings. As we walked along the lakefront, looking at the three- and four-story houses, she whispered about the inhabitants being very well-to-do.
“They’re sipping cocktails and waiting to be served,” she said.
Then, as though holding a dirty rag at arm’s length, disgusted but unable to let go, she pointed to one of the largest houses and told me the help lived in the back.
One evening, when my grandfather took our family out for dinner, my mother got us all gussied up. My father wore his work suit. Michael had his hair slicked to one side. I put on a dress, frilly white anklets, and black Mary Janes. With my mother calling the restaurant fancy and my grandparents declaring it elegant, I knew to be on my best behavior, to mind my p’s and q’s, and not to order anything too expensive. I was probably scanning the right-hand side of the menu, searching for the smallest numbers rather than considering what I wanted to eat, when my grandfather stood up and put his napkin on the table. A man and a woman dressed for a party had entered the dining room and were gliding in our direction. When they reached our table, everyone stood. I watched as my grandparents chatted with their friends and introduced them to my parents, wondering if the couple was royalty of some sort. Maybe they were famous. The honey of their voices and elegance they exuded filled the space around us.
When the glowing man and woman departed, we sat down. A shadow fell, the room went gray, and my grandparents leaned in toward the center of the table.
“He’s never worked,” my grandfather said, his voice low.
“They are such lovely people,” my grandmother added, a smile frozen on her face. “They’re very generous people.”
“They have a big home on the lake,” my grandfather said. “He likes to golf. You know how those people spend their time.”
The tone of my grandfather’s voice and the look on his face confused me. Only over time did I come to understand the influence of the Great Depression. After living through financially difficult years, my grandparents had learned to watch every penny. They had also become resentful of the moneyed classes and their morally bankrupt ways. As my grandmother snuck Saltines from restaurant tables and stashed them in her purse, pleased to have a snack tucked away for later, “Just in case,” she kept her rich friends at a cautious distance, like exotic animals in the zoo.
One late afternoon, when I was a teen, my mother picked me up from a friend’s house.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was great! Have you been in their living room?”
My mother shook her head.
“It’s so pretty. There’s a big fireplace, white sofas, matching chairs. They only use it for guests. Kids aren’t supposed to go in. But we did. And we played Ping-Pong and foosball in the basement.”
“I’m glad you had a good time,” my mother said, curtly.
“Mrs. Roberts took us to their country club. We rode in the back of the station wagon and swam in the pool.”
My mother gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead.
“Mrs. Roberts made cookies,” I said. “They have a microwave in their kitchen. And an electric can opener.”
We pulled to an abrupt stop in front of Dip’n Donuts.
“Do you want a donut?” my mother asked. “Or maybe these aren’t good enough. Does Mrs. Roberts make her own?”
I was quiet as my mother continued.
“I’m glad we aren’t living in that type of neighborhood anymore. We couldn’t have afforded that country club or kept up with those people,” she said. “You’ve always been so interested in money.”
My mother’s reaction hurt. She seemed jealous of Mrs. Roberts—and dismayed by me. I was ashamed of what she perceived to be my interest in money. After all, responsible girls weren’t supposed to care about material things.
Standing in the large, turn-of-the-century house, watching the realtor turn her back and walk out the door to arrange her signs, I wanted to run. I didn’t want to be anything like my grandparents’ friends or a daughter who was interested in auspiciously large houses.
“Let’s go,” I said to David.
Driving to a more down-to-earth neighborhood, we stopped outside a small white bungalow with a FOR SALE sign in the front. Inside, a guy in his late twenties was sitting on a folding metal chair, reading a book. He stood when we entered, introduced himself as James, then gave us a tour. Although the house wasn’t quite what either of us wanted, we asked James to be our buyer’s agent.
I was interested in a home that fit with how I saw myself. I was practical too. With the Microsoft stock price soaring, it was wisest to hold onto our options and let their value grow. So, when James asked about our budget, David and I told him we wanted to spend between $150,000 and $180,000, an amount we could easily afford on our salaries, which would get us a decent-sized fixer-upper in a comfortable neighborhood and wouldn’t require cashing in options.
But then, when James took us to look at houses, we stood on the sidewalk in front of the first place he wanted to show us, and didn’t go in. The house wasn’t welcoming. I stared at the peeling paint on the front and the cracked concrete stairs leading up to the door and, suddenly, owning a fixer-upper didn’t seem romantic. Hearing traffic from the nearby highway, I thought of Donna and Matt, and Lynn and Adam, and the places they’d purchased. Were David and I on the path to repeating our San Francisco weekend experience in the form of a house? We didn’t need to buy a starter home. We didn’t need to spend time at home improvement stores or hanging wall-paper either. Even if we didn’t cash in options, we could afford to purchase a place that didn’t require so much work and was still in keeping with who we were—or at least in keeping with who I’d always been and imagined myself to be.
“You know,” David said, turning to James, “I don’t think we need to go in.”
“It’s cozy inside . . . and much nicer than it looks from the street,” James countered.
We shook our heads.
Driving to the next location, James talked about imagination and vision. Sure enough, we needed both. The owners had made many of their own improvements, adding a porch out back that looked too unstable to use, and a greenhouse in the master bedroom that made the whole place smell of dirt. David and I walked through in silence, shooting looks at each other behind James’ back.
“I think we should spend a bit more,” I said once we were alone.
“Yeah, we need to double our budget,” David said.
I froze at the suggestion. My identity was at stake. We were a young professional couple working our way up. It didn’t feel right to suddenly double our budget. Who could do such a thing?
“What will James think?” I said.
“He’ll probably think, ‘better commission for me,’” David said.
“But he’ll look at us differently,” I said.
I wanted James to like us, not think we were cavalier with our money. I certainly didn’t want him to think we had a lot of it.
“It’s James’s job to find us a house,” David said. “We’re his clients.”
David had a point. James was our buyer’s agent. But our rapport was so good. If we doubled our budget, I was afraid he’d see us as people with whom he couldn’t relate, with whom he had nothing in common. Would he think of us as obnoxious? I didn’t want him to think we were people to keep at a distance like my grandparents’ friends—people who were rich. I didn’t want to think of myself that way either.
David said he had no problem telling James we were interested in places in a higher price range, so I let him do the talking. But when we went out again to look at houses with James, it was clear David hadn’t told him we wanted to double our budget. The next house we saw was a Tudor listed for $220,000 with a tall pine tree out front, a large deck in the back, and three small bedrooms upstairs. Walking through the living room, admiring the hardwood floors and old-fashioned tiled fireplace, the private glances David and I exchanged were altogether different. The house wasn’t too big or too small. It felt just right for a young professional couple.
As we walked to the car, David reached for my hand.
“I can imagine living there,” he said. “With you.”
Suddenly, I didn’t know how to respond. What was I doing? I didn’t want to buy a house just because we could afford one. It wasn’t about the money. We’d found an ideal first house, but a home was more about building a life together than about making a purchase. I didn’t want to live with David unless we had a plan for the future—our future.
“That deck will be great for eating outside in the summer,” David continued.
“I don’t want a house,” I blurted out.
David stopped. He looked hurt. But he recovered quickly.
“I’ll buy it,” he said. “You can live with me.”
I saw David’s grin. Then all I saw were his teeth, big and white. I looked away, blinking.
“I like the house,” my voice said. “But it brings up questions. I don’t want to just live together. I want to be with you.”
“Me too,” David said, finally aware I was upset. “I want to be with you too.”
I didn’t know how to say what I wanted. David didn’t seem to be catching on. I wished he’d figure it out, and want the same himself. As it was, he was just bulldozing along, playing around, doing whatever caught his interest, trying to have it all without considering me—or us. We had stock options and loads of freedom, but my ideal first home wasn’t something money could buy.
Contemplation & Conversation
•What stereotypes of wealth and the wealthy do you believe hold true? Why?
•Jennifer doesn’t want to see herself as someone with money. Does the amount of money you have affect how you see yourself? How others see you?
•How does where you live reflect who you are and what you value? Is your home an accurate reflection of your financial situation?