Estate Managers Hold Keys to Kingdoms of the Wealthy Lauren Greenfield/Institute, for The New York Times Bryan Peele, an estate manager, works with landscapers to maintain the upkeep of a client's property in Brentwood, Calif. In a bedroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Bryan Peele was working up a sweat on a StairMaster. He did not need the exercise, but the equipment did: in his experience, the battery would run down without frequent use. Peele was keeping the machine in shape for its owners, a wealthy family that hired him eight months earlier to manage their estate in Los Angeles, as well as this beach house in Malibu. Every two weeks, far more often than his employers, Peele makes the 45-minute drive to the beachfront home. Once there, he runs every faucet for 15 minutes, flushes every toilet and lights every fireplace, so that the house comes maniacally alive; he checks the coffee maker, toaster, televisions and the laptop, inspects the exterior paint job, eyeballs the pipes, advises the landscapers on how to brighten the floral mix, consults with whatever workman is on the job and finally, shortly before leaving, he hits the StairMaster. "It's a lot of work," said Peele, a tall 42-year-old with a boyishly handsome face. The machine whirred as Peele, in a polo shirt and Jack Purcell sneakers, climbed steadily. Sometimes I wonder if they see it. I hope they see it. He was panting just a bit. You know, you hope that they do. Peele is one of perhaps 1,000 or so estate managers who oversee properties and staff for some of the country's wealthiest individuals, in his case, the manager of an investment firm based in Los Angeles. When his employers give parties, Peele greets guests, butler-style, at the door of the family's 10,000-square-foot Mediterranean-type villa home in Los Angeles, but he also oversees the installation of their security systems and chooses the vendor who will restore their art should that be needed. Peele thinks of himself as "holding the keys to the kingdom." He also color-coordinates the keys and labels them. "A label maker is an estate manager's best friend," Peele said, showing off an impeccably organized desk drawer. Money cannot protect even the truly wealthy from sickness, marital strife or ungrateful children, but it can buy other certainties: the certainty, for example, that when the N.F.L. playoffs start, the batteries in the remote will work, because someone like Peele will have checked them that morning, as well as every other morning that week. Money shields their eyes from lawn furniture that is anything less than symmetrically arranged. Being a member of the 1 percent of the 1 percent means never having to say to your spouse, "Did you call the guy about the thing?" The guy has been called; the thing has been arranged, thanks to someone like Bryan Peele. Part of the fascination of the television series "Downton Abbey" for an American rests in the clarity of the class lines, the acceptance with which everyone plays out his role - servant or master - as dictated by birth. The modern American estate manager, however, has a less clearly defined relationship to a life of service: as the manager of at least one or two properties, encompassing many square feet, he or she is someone who is sophisticated enough to run, say, a luxury boutique hotel but who chooses instead to serve a celebrity or financier or entrepreneur, accepting the deference the job entails. Few people plan to be estate managers. A young person who likes boating might take a summer job helping out on a yacht, then end up managing the yacht staff and, eventually, the owner's homes. Many estate managers start out as private chefs: someone who can keep a luxury island home 200 miles from the mainland stocked with crème fraîche and bottles of 1982 Pétrus naturally slides into the role of keeping it supplied with 600-thread-count sheets. Peele started out managing the home of the wealthy brother of a friend and eventually moved into higher-profile roles. He developed his expertise by living in high style himself for close to a decade. Born into a middle-class family in North Carolina, Peele spent most of his 20s involved and working with an older man who ran a high-end interior-design business. The two of them lived lavishly, traveling on the Orient Express, taking balloon rides over the French countryside, horseback riding through Fontainebleau. "I remember being on the QE2, in one of those suites that came with its own 24-hour butler," Peele said. And I remember thinking, The bathroom fixtures are so shiny, they're like mirrors. How do they get them so shiny? Now he knows: Brasso and elbow grease.