The Estate Manager
Domestic Services
What is an Estate Manager?
An Estate Manager is a senior household professional entrusted with the comprehensive oversight of a private estate. The role is typically reserved for substantial residences, multi property portfolios, or households requiring refined leadership, long term planning, and a high level of operational sophistication.
Estate Managers operate with polish and discretion, serving as a trusted representative of the household and a primary point of contact between the family and external parties. They manage access, communication, and relationships with vendors, service providers, and staff, ensuring interactions are handled seamlessly and in alignment with the family’s expectations.
In addition to this outward facing role, Estate Managers provide authoritative leadership within the estate, overseeing domestic staff, coordinating services across the property or properties, and maintaining consistently high standards. Their oversight ensures that the estate functions effortlessly, allowing the household to operate with continuity, privacy, and confidence.
Estates with multiple properties in their portfolio, especially across large geographic areas, may be interested in exploring the Director of Residences role as well. Additionally, those seeking a professional that may cross over between the estate team and the principals business world, may also wish to explore the role of the Chief of Staff.
To learn more about working with an Estate Manager, or to begin the placement process, we invite you to connect for a consultation.
Why Hire an Estate Manager?
An Estate Manager provides senior level oversight focused on the seamless operation of the estate as a whole. Rather than managing isolated tasks, they maintain a high level view across properties, teams, and services, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and alignment with the family’s expectations.
With a strong leadership presence and exceptional communication skills, an Estate Manager sets the tone for the household and leads by example. They ensure policies, standards, and procedures are clearly understood and consistently followed, creating structure and accountability across all household operations.
Serving as both a trusted advisor and day to day steward, an Estate Manager becomes an essential extension of the principals. Their role often extends beyond the residence itself and may include involvement in real estate acquisitions or sales, coordination of yacht builds and staffing, direct communication with aviation teams, and collaboration with art curators from acquisition through installation. Through this breadth of responsibility, an Estate Manager provides continuity, discretion, and confidence across every aspect of a complex private lifestyle.
The Expertise of the Estate Managers We Represent.
Our network is shaped by firsthand experience. The firm’s founder, Masha, previously served as an Estate Manager herself and remains deeply embedded in the global estate management community. This background informs how we evaluate, place, and support Estate Managers - ensuring candidates meet the practical, professional, and leadership standards required at this level.
The Estate Managers we work with represent the highest level of private service leadership. They bring a depth of experience often shaped by decades of hands on estate management, senior operational roles, and, in many cases, formal education or military backgrounds that emphasize discipline, structure, and discretion. Many have dedicated multiple decades of their lives to private service, building deep institutional knowledge within estates and serving families through multiple stages of growth and transition.
These professionals are experienced in overseeing every aspect of luxury estate operations, including, but not limited to:
Leading, training, and developing household staff at all levels, with an emphasis on professionalism, accountability, and long term retention
Building staffing structures that evolve alongside the needs of the estate, ensuring teams are properly supported as households grow or change
Managing all aspects of human resources, including hiring, onboarding, performance management, and separations
Establishing and maintaining payroll systems, timekeeping, insurance coverage, and employment compliance, often in coordination with a family office or business office
Overseeing the interior and exterior maintenance of one or multiple high end properties, ensuring homes are maintained to the highest standards
Managing relationships with vendors, contractors, and professional service providers across all estate functions
Coordinating aviation, automotive, and yachting operations, including maintenance schedules, staffing, licensing, permits, and regulatory requirements
Overseeing household and estate finances, including budget management, expense tracking, petty cash systems, credit card controls, and approval of estimates and invoices
Providing detailed reporting and documentation to principals or business offices to support transparency and informed decision making
The Estate Managers in our network bring experience, operational leadership, and discretion to complex private environments. Their role is to establish systems, supervise staff, and maintain continuity across estate operations.
To learn more about working with an Estate Manager, or to begin the placement process, we invite you to connect for a complementary consultation.
Questions and Answers
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While both roles focus on household organization and oversight, an Estate Manager operates at a broader, more strategic level. Estate Managers typically oversee multiple properties, larger teams, and complex assets, often serving as the senior authority across residences. Home Managers are generally focused on the day-to-day operation of a single primary home, whereas Estate Managers manage scale, complexity, and long-term continuity across an estate or portfolio.
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Estate Manager roles may be structured as either live-in or live-out, depending on the operational requirements of the estate. Many positions are live-out, particularly when responsibilities span multiple properties or involve frequent travel between residences.
On-site living arrangements are typically considered only when an estate’s location or scope calls for a consistent physical presence, and are based on practical need rather than assumed as part of the role.
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Estate Managers are usually granted significant decision-making authority within agreed upon parameters. This often includes managing budgets, approving vendors, supervising staff, and acting as the primary representative of the household. Clear boundaries and reporting structures are established early on, to allow the Estate Manager to operate independently while remaining aligned with the principals expectations.
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Estate Managers frequently collaborate with family offices, legal teams, accountants, and business managers. Their role is to bridge personal and operational needs - ensuring household decisions align with financial, legal, and administrative frameworks while maintaining discretion and efficiency.
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Yes. Estate Managers are often responsible for preparing properties for seasonal use, overseeing openings and closures, coordinating maintenance while homes are unoccupied, and ensuring each residence is fully operational upon arrival. This continuity is especially valuable for families who divide time across multiple locations.
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Success is typically reflected in consistency, foresight, and smooth operations. When systems run quietly, staff perform confidently, issues are anticipated before they arise, and principals experience ease rather than friction, the Estate Manager is doing their job well.
How to Hire an Estate Manager.
At The Grocery Store, The Anti-Agency, the process begins with a conversation about the current operational structure of your estate, and the scope of support required to meet your goals. From there, the role is clearly defined and a confidential search for uniquely qualified candidates is conducted.
The Grocery Store places Estate Managers across major residential, metropolitan, and resort destinations:
Southern California, Los Angeles, Malibu, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, and surrounding communities
Northern California, San Francisco, Atherton, Palo Alto, Woodside, and the greater Bay Area
Florida, Miami, Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and neighboring coastal areas
New York City and New York State, the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, SoHo, TriBeCa, Chelsea, Brooklyn, the Hamptons, and the greater Tri-State area
Connecticut and nearby regions, Greenwich, Stamford, Westchester, and surrounding communities
New England, Boston and surrounding areas of Massachusetts, as well as Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard
The Midwest, Chicago and surrounding areas
Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Maryland and Virginia
Texas, Houston, Austin, Dallas, and other major cities
The Pacific Northwest, Seattle and Portland
Resort destinations, Aspen, Colorado, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming
The Hawaiian Islands, Honolulu, Maui, and the North Shore
Nationwide, with select international placements
