How the super-rich are making their homes ‘invisible’

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There is nothing remarkable about 23726 Long Valley Road — except that it does not appear to exist.
Estate agents’ advertisements show that the high-end Californian home — six bedrooms, pizza oven, pool — is situated in a gated community on the edge of Los Angeles. Yet prospective buyers searching online to check out the neighbourhood are wasting their time — none of the area’s 648 homes appear on Google Street View.

ll that online maps show of the area are street routes and names — what could perhaps be an outline plan for a future housing development. But anyone looking for a kerbside view of the property will find no evidence of it.
The community’s name gives a clue why: it is called Hidden Hills. What the area’s occupants — who reportedly include Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez — value above all is privacy. That includes banning Google’s photography vehicles from entering (and declining to talk to the FT; a spokeswoman for the area’s management company said it had a policy of not giving interviews to the press).

Academics have long used the names “hidden communities” or “invisible communities” to denote areas with high concentrations of deprivation and social marginalisation. Yet some of the world’s most privileged people are choosing to hide from the public eye to protect their homes from burglars and other forms of unwelcome attention.
In an evermore connected world, privacy is perhaps the greatest luxury anyone can buy.
This demand for under-the-radar living has fuelled the spread of places like Hidden Hills. California has several other neighbourhoods that guard their privacy by refusing to appear on Street View, including Bradbury and Bell Canyon. All are among the most affluent neighbourhoods in the US.
Author and futurist Geoff Manaugh, whose book A Burglar’s Guide To The City documents these attempts to take entire communities out of the public gaze, calls it an “urban-scale non-disclosure agreement”.
The occupants of such areas “do not want to be discussed” and operate on the basis that “out of sight [means] out of mind — and out of the reach of burglars,” he writes.
To be clear: these options are not a true stealth strategy, hiding you from the tax authorities or security services. But they are a way of avoiding more casual unwanted attention, from nosy neighbours to the paparazzi.
“There was a time when people really flaunted their wealth; now they don’t,” says David Forbes, head of private office at estate agent Savills who advises wealthy buyers. “People’s priorities over the years have shifted. Now right at the top of the list it’s security.”

He cites the routine use of shell companies and other ownership structures to give property buyers anonymity, along with the increasing popularity of gated communities rather than “buying the individual villa up on the hill that everyone can see”. Homeowners are also pouring “a lot more money than ever before” into home security systems, he says.
This safety threat can be very real, Forbes warns. “If you’re driving a convertible Bentley right now in the South of France you’re asking for trouble, you’ll be followed back to your villa by a couple of scooters. People will still spend their money on boats and planes but open street displays of wealth, no, people don’t want to attract that kind of attention.”

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