Grab an Italian masterpiece for less
What you obviously need is a new home in New York’s Miraval Living development. Sure, Manhattan’s Upper East Side might not be the handiest of locations, but for the changes you need to make that is but a small inconvenience. Because this so-far unique venture is an “inspired living residence”. The developers are using their experience running an award-winning spa in Arizona to create an environment that will “lead you to a more balanced and inspired life 52 weeks of the year”, says John Vanderslice, Miraval’s chief executive.
So could it radically improve your life — or would it turn out to be horribly like living with Gillian McKeith, Trinny and Susannah, Raj Persaud, Carole Caplin and Supernanny Jo Frost all permanently encamped in the spare room?
When you shell out for one of the 355 flats — $600,000 (£305,000) for a 500sq ft studio, or up to $3m (£1.52m) for a three- bedder (not exceptional prices for Manhattan) — and move in, you will be introduced to your own full-time “mindful living coach” who, says Vanderslice, will “help you meet your goals, from running a marathon to reducing stress”.
Your coach will direct you to appropriate in-house experts — including a doctor and a psychologist — and a bespoke selection of the 107 courses in the building’s gym, spa, indoor pool, arts studio, meditation room and 20,000sq ft garden. There will be yoga, predictably, and massage, but you can also bone up on “healthy shopping”, “mindful stress reduction”, “accessing the heart’s intelligence” and “intimacy for couples”. Fitness regimes include Fletcher Towelwork, whatever that is, and Quantum Leap, a way to “practise what it truly means to live in the moment, and make every breath count” — as far as I can work out, you jump off a 25ft-high pole.
Vanderslice helpfully outlines what a typical week’s activities at Miraval might be like. A 40-year-old-man, for example, could kick-start Monday with meditation at 5.30am, take in four 30-minute treadmill sessions and devote evenings to the “making lasting changes” course and attending a wine-tasting with his wife. She, meanwhile, would be following her own path to that balanced and inspired nirvana with “balletone”, pilates, a “journaling class” and ballroom dancing. NB, these are edited highlights, the full list would run off the end of the page. NB also, that this is supposed to fit in with normal working life.
Still, after a few weeks you will hardly know yourself. Or your kids, who will be realising their full potential at the climbing wall, “mindful manners” instruction and “dance mat meditation”.
Everything except one-to-one classes and treatments is included in the service charges, which will be calculated on a per sq ft basis and range from £610 to £3,250 a month including real estate taxes. Which could well be more than your current annual mortgage repayments — but how much is too much to live in a building where the air is double filtered, the pool chlorine free, the carpets and paint specially non toxic and the cafe can make you a wholesome lunch to take to work?
Miraval will be ready to move into in the summer; Vanderslice claims interest has been “unbelievable” and says buyers so far include families, singles and couples. So his decision to locate his first residential venture in “the stress capital of the world” seems to be paying off. After all, as he says, “New Yorkers don’t have time for yoga downtown and the nutritionist uptown”.
Quite. But one question: how much will you have to bribe the doorman to smuggle in a double chilli cheeseburger with fries?
Miraval sales, 001 212 772 2722, www.miravalliving.com

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