Estate Manager (New York)

Estate Manager/Manager of Hospitality for UHNW Family — NYC

New York City–based, with regular travel to the Hamptons and periodic travel to Aspen and London

Full-time, with flexibility for events, weekends, and travel

Compensation: $200,000–$250,000 base salary, plus discretionary bonus and full benefits, depending on experience

A private family with five residences across New York City, the Hamptons, Aspen, and London is seeking an exceptional Director of Hospitality to oversee service standards, household staff, guest experience, and entertaining across the family's residential portfolio.

This role requires a unique combination of private Estate Management experience and sophisticated luxury hospitality expertise. The ideal candidate understands not only how a high-level private residence operates, but also what exceptional service looks and feels like — and, most importantly, how to train and lead teams to deliver that level of service consistently.

Service consistency across the residences is at the heart of this position. Each home has its own personality, staffing needs, and rhythm, but the family's experience should feel seamless from one property to the next. The Director of Hospitality will establish those standards, teach them, reinforce them, and ensure they are being executed at the highest level.

This is a highly hands-on leadership and staff-management position. The family's Chief of Staff oversees broader day-to-day operations and will work in close tandem with the Director of Hospitality. Together, they will ensure that the homes operate beautifully, while the Director of Hospitality takes primary ownership of service, staff performance and training, household readiness, guest experience, and entertaining.

Duties and Responsibilities

Establish and maintain exceptional service standards across all residences, creating consistency while respecting the individual style and rhythm of each home.

Serve as the family's authority on service — understanding what great service looks like, how it should be delivered, and how to create a culture in which it happens naturally and consistently.

Manage, mentor, train, and develop household staff, including housekeepers, chefs, butlers and other hospitality-focused team members.

Ensure staff understand expectations around formal and informal service, household presentation, food and beverage service, guest care, discretion, communication, and attention to detail.

Create and maintain SOPs, service manuals, checklists, preference files, training materials, and quality-control systems that can be implemented consistently across multiple residences.

Regularly assess staff performance and service execution, identifying opportunities for additional training, stronger communication, or improved systems.

Partner closely with the Chief of Staff on staffing, household priorities, scheduling, family needs, events, and overall execution across the residences.

Help establish clear roles, responsibilities, routines, and accountability while fostering a collaborative, respectful, and highly professional staff culture.

Recruit, onboard, and train new household staff in partnership with the Chief of Staff and property leaders.

Support seasonal staffing and the hiring and onboarding of a future Hamptons House Manager.

Ensure each property is fully prepared for family arrivals, overnight guests, intimate dinners, larger gatherings, and special events.

Lead the hospitality and service components of entertaining, particularly in New York City and the Hamptons.

Coordinate with chefs, household staff, event planners, vendors, and security teams to ensure seamless staffing, guest flow, timing, table service, presentation, and overall execution.

Develop a deep understanding of family and guest preferences and ensure those preferences are communicated and executed consistently across every residence.

Travel between properties to assess standards, train teams, support seasonal transitions, and prepare residences for family visits and events.

Remain hands-on and willing to step in alongside the team whenever necessary.

This position does not oversee nannies or childcare staff.

Qualifications

8–10+ years of progressive experience spanning private Estate Management/private service and luxury hospitality, with significant leadership responsibility.

Meaningful experience working inside sophisticated private residences is essential. Candidates should understand the nuances, discretion, pace, and highly personalized nature of UHNW private service.

Prior five-star hotel/resort, Michelin-level restaurant, private club, luxury events, or comparable high-touch hospitality experience is highly valued, particularly when combined with private estate experience.

Proven experience managing, training, mentoring, and holding household staff accountable to exceptional service standards.

Deep understanding of both formal and informal service and the ability to adapt service style appropriately to the family, residence, guest, and occasion.

Demonstrated ability to create consistent service standards across multiple homes and teams, rather than simply managing the operations of an individual property.

Strong knowledge of food and beverage service, household presentation, entertaining, guest experience, and residential readiness.

Experience developing SOPs, service manuals, training programs, preference systems, checklists, and quality-control standards.

Multi-property and seasonal-residence experience strongly preferred.

Exceptional leadership and people-management skills; able to set a high bar while creating a positive, respectful, and team-oriented culture.

Refined, observant, highly organized, and extraordinarily attentive to detail, with an instinct for anticipating needs before they are expressed.

Warm, discreet, emotionally intelligent, low ego, and calm under pressure.

Comfortable operating within an established leadership structure and working in true partnership with a Chief of Staff rather than duplicating the Chief of Staff's responsibilities.

Flexible to travel domestically and internationally and work evenings, weekends, and events as required.

Valid driver's license and passport, with verifiable references from comparable private-service environments.

The Ideal Profile

The strongest candidate will have lived in both worlds: private Estate Management and exceptional luxury hospitality. They understand the operational realities of running sophisticated residences, but their true strength is service and people — setting the standard, training teams, managing staff, anticipating needs, and creating an experience that feels effortless to the family.

This person knows that extraordinary service is not simply about formality. It is about consistency, anticipation, warmth, discretion, attention to detail, and making sure every member of the household team understands exactly what excellent service means.