The ultrarich are determined to live for a very long time, and increasingly they are looking to their homes to help them accomplish that.
“Everything is about wellness and longevity,” Douglas Elliman broker associate Lourdes Alatriste tells Realtor.com® of her ultra-high-net-worth-individual (UHNWI) clients who snap up pricey South Florida abodes for $10 million or more.
Luxury housing market research firm Knight-Frank defines the UHNWI as someone worth at least $30 million. According to its 2025 Wealth report, the ultrarich prioritize wellness/health experiences (24%) over international travel (19%) or cultural events (13%), or even family experiences (8%).
In terms of what luxury assets these multimillionaires most want to own, forget about Rolex watches or diamond jewelry. Almost 30% said they prefer luxury real estate—far above a private jet (15%) or a super yacht (9%).
So it makes sense that the affluent would combine their love of wellness and real estate into properties that boast a plethora of health-boosting features.
According to global real estate investment expo Rise, the global wellness real estate market is on track to quadruple to $2 trillion by 2034.
Forty-five percent of elite homebuyers insist on wellness features, especially “silent luxuries” such as pollutant filters, rooms bathed in natural light cycles, and meditation pods.
“Think private saltwater pools, biometric-controlled sanctuaries, and gardens that double as organic farms,” says the report. “Investors are chasing a different kind of ROI—one measured in air quality, circadian rhythms, and emotional equilibrium. … They’re investing in a lifestyle where every brick, beam, and breeze is calibrated to their well-being.
“Developers are no longer selling properties—they’re engineering ecosystems.”
Bringing longevity into the home
The UHNWI who may have once wanted a wet bar, cigar room, billiards table, or disco in their home now prioritize health over Playboy Mansion-style debauchery.
Today’s hottest wellness feature is the cold plunge pool, popularized by health-conscious celebrities like supermodel Elle MacPherson and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow.
“You’d be surprised how many people are putting these in their homes,” says Alatriste. “I saw Elle MacPherson‘s home last year. She took her cold plunge pool with her when she moved.”
Indeed, the supermodel’s wellness site often extols the virtues of the cold plunge. In the morning, after drinking filtered water and lime, and putting her “feet on the earth,” she then dunks into a cold bath.
Other in-demand wellness features include infrared saunas, pickleball courts, and air and water filtration systems.
Especially hot is the “biophilic design,” wherein nature is incorporated into the home’s aesthetic, often with floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooking wild greenery, an infinity edge pool, or waterfront.
“People want that endless flow of indoor-and-outdoor living,” says Alatriste.
It’s this design that 30 Palm Avenue, a nine-bedroom $48 million house on Miami’s Palm Island, has in abundance. Virtually every room overlooks a sprawling garden, the in-ground pool, or Biscayne Bay.
Even the office appears to be a seamless part of the outdoor living areas, with close-up views of greenery, the pool, and water. It’s a perfect way to gain some relaxation while conducting business meetings.
Alatriste says the hyperfocus on wellness began with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People didn’t want to leave their homes,” she explains. “They wanted everything at their fingertips—the gym, the pickleball courts, the saunas, the beauty salons.”
But just because the pandemic is over doesn’t mean people want to venture outside again.
“Now they want to avoid traffic,” she says. “It’s out of control here.”
Designer Mark Tremblay, president of Marc-Michaels Interior Design, who specializes in servicing UHNWI in South Florida and beyond, echoes the wealthy homeowner’s obsession with living a long and sprightly life.
“My clients have always wanted some kind of gym component,” he says. “But that has turned into a gym with beauty, wellness, and spa components.”
Typical in-demand features include infrared saunas and steam rooms, private mani-pedi stations, hair salons, and massage rooms.
“It’s kind of a sidebar from COVID,” Tremblay says. “They got used to having these amenities at home. They are all very energetic.”
Less common but still on the wants list are serenity-inducing features like private Zen gardens.
“Centering themselves in the universe, I guess, is their main goal,” explains Tremblay.
He notes that most of his clients have extremely stressful and busy careers with near perpetual travel, so they want their homes—when they’re actually in them—to be a relaxing refuge.
“Money is usually not an issue,” he says of clients who think nothing of dropping $50,000 on a gym/spa.
But not all of the trendy wellness features will stick around for the long haul. Tremblay predicts one is on its way out.
Living walls—or walls covered in plant-life—look beautiful and can be a unique way to bring the outdoors inside. But the plant-covered walls are costly and extremely difficult to maintain.
“Plants are hard,” he says. “People ask for these living walls once, and never again.”
