In a Luxury-Home Market Obsessed With Wellness, the ‘Shaman Is Another Level Altogether’

Luxury concierges, expected to go to the ends of the Earth to satisfy residents, may have to tread even further in their latest role. 

A new crop of luxury buildings looking for more creative ways to stand out and attract wellness-focused buyers is going beyond, the flashy fitness centers and spas to add meditation gardens, cold plunges or ice baths—and, yes, spiritual concierges, who connect residents with healers, therapists and a bevy of other experts to help with mental and emotional health. 

Take the Maverick Chelsea in New York as an example. The building, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, saw residents start to move in November and is debuting three floors of wellness amenities this month such as a 60-foot-long indoor mosaic tiled pool with cabana seating. But the highlight may be the on-call spiritual concierge who residents can tap through the building’s programming partner LIVunLtd.

Maverick Chelsea’s head of sales Alex Lundqvist said that the concierge can connect homeowners with top aura readers, crystal and reiki healers and meditation teachers. 

“We want to provide multiple ways to help people who are seeking spiritual realignment or guidance,” he said. “It’s something that’s increasingly valued today.”

One&Only Mandarina Private Homes, in Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit, also offers spiritual aid—a shaman to be exact who leads a traditional Mexican sage ceremony for interested buyers to bless their new homes.

Danielle Lepe, a San Francisco resident who works at Facebook, for one, bought a six-bedroom residence at the property with her husband and jumped at the chance. “I want any home of mine to have good energy, and I believed that a shaman could bring that in,” she said.

Ms. Lepe and her husband invited several friends to join them for the auspicious day, which she said saw clusters of hundreds of dragonflies circling the sky. The shaman saged the property inside and out, she said, and also blessed their expecting friend. “I am not at all a hippie-dippy type, and neither are our friends, but our spirits and souls felt nourished,” she said. “We felt an incredible sense of peace and that everything would be O.K.”

The development’s overall wellness amenities were a big reason why the property appealed to her and her husband, said Lepe. “It has the best breathwork and fitness classes that we fully take advantage of, but the shaman is another level altogether,” she said.

These more unusual perks of buying a residence in an upscale building are no surprise, according to Beth McGroarty, the research director for the Global Wellness Institute, a Miami-based nonprofit that promotes wellness. This is because wellness-centric residential real estate has been powered by the pandemic and is seeing a rapid rise. According to the group’s data, the market was valued at $148 billion in 2017. This year, it’s projected to jump to $460 billion, and by 2025, $580 billion.

“Wellness in real estate today means everything that you would find at a cutting-edge wellness center,” Ms. McGroarty said. “It’s also a lot more holistic and emphasizes emotional and spiritual health because buyers want help in this realm, especially after the pandemic.”

Mikaela Arroyo, the director of the New Home Trends Institute at California-headquartered John Burns Real Estate Consulting, agreed. “We surveyed homeowners and renters last November, and the majority responded that mental well-being was more paramount than physical health and their top priority when seeking a new property,” she said.

Some of the latest spa amenities also blur the line between physical and mental wellness. 

A trendy amenity that’s designed to shock, all in the name of health of course, is the ice bath, where residents—as the name suggests—literally take a bath, if only for a second, in a tub filled with ice. Cold plunges are another twist on the concept and claim to have a similar effect. Cold therapy is touted as a cure all for everything from inflammation and  sore muscles to improving mental health.

Fiction or fact aside, extreme temperature plunges and baths are catching on.

The Renaissance Residences Honolulu and Four Seasons Private Residences Lake Austin both have cold plunge baths. It’s also a feature at Brooklyn Point in downtown Brooklyn, according to Ryan Serhant, who is leading the sales and marketing for the building.