To clarify: nothing is impenetrable, it's just a question of the cost of getting in.
British
music producer Alex Grant was living in an under-construction
mega-mansion in Los Angeles when, one morning shortly after 9 a.m., an
armed intruder burst into the home.
“He
came in and we had a tussle,” recalled Grant, formerly known as Alex Da
Kid. Grant managed to call his manager, who phoned the police. Soon,
officers and helicopters were on the scene.
He
briefly considered abandoning the project after the 2017 break-in but
ultimately finished the 24,000-square-foot home, which has eight pools, a
car elevator and a nightclub. But, he doubled down on security
features, installing a guard house, tall gates and a security system
with retina scanners that alert the homeowner to movement in the home.
“Later, I found out he had these knives on him,” said Grant, who
recently listed the mansion and a neighboring house for $85 million
after moving to New York.
In
an era of high-profile violence—including the suspected abduction of
Savannah Guthrie’s mother from her Arizona home just over a week ago—the
wealthy are investing heavily in their personal security, particularly
when it comes to their homes.
Security
measures once reserved for presidents and royalty—safe rooms, biometric
access controls, laser-powered perimeter defenses—are now mainstream
items in luxury homes. Executive-protection teams and armed guards
patrol gated enclaves and suburban estates, while tech startups are
rolling out predictive threat-detection systems built for the
ultra-wealthy. The shift reflects a hardening view among the affluent:
Traditional policing and communal safety are no longer enough, so
security is being privatized, customized.
This
new emphasis is reflected in sales data. Roughly 45% of luxury homes
sold in 2025 included a reference to privacy or security, according to
Coldwell Banker Realty, up from 38% in 2024.
Why the wealthy are on edge
Break-ins at the homes of celebrities and professional athletes have been putting the wealthy on edge. A group of Chilean nationals was indicted last year for stealing items worth more than $2 million from sports stars including Kansas City Chiefs players Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes.The
break-ins, which took place when the players were not home, put fellow
athletes on notice. Miami Dolphins player Tua Tagovailoa said he hired
personal security to monitor his house when he’s on the road. “Let that
be known, they are armed, so I hope if you decide to go to my house you
think twice,” he said at a December 2024 press conference. The homes of celebrities like Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman have also been broken into.
Miami
real-estate agent Danny Hertzberg of Coldwell Banker Realty said he
began noticing an increased emphasis on security in 2020, when
high-profile executives were migrating from New York to Miami during the
early days of the Covid pandemic, but it’s ramped up ever more since
the ambush killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan
sidewalk in 2024 and the shooting of Blackstone executive Wesley
LePatner and several others in July 2025 at a Park Avenue office tower.
The
sheer volume of personal information now available online has
heightened anxiety among the wealthy. And the ubiquity of social media
has stripped away a layer of anonymity the wealthy once relied on.
“Prior to the wide use of social media, most CEOs—whether they’re in
private equity, finance or tech—no one knew their names or what they
looked like, with few exceptions,” Hertzberg said. “Now, people are
tracking them.”
Private
jet tracking websites—which allow anyone to monitor private aircraft
movements in real time—in particular have “sent chills through the
high-net worth community,” he said. Corporations are taking note.
Companies offering personal security benefits for CEOs increased by 10%
in 2025 compared to 2023, according to a Goldman Sachs Ayco survey. And
27% of respondents offered home security benefits to CEOs, the highest
level since 2003.
Building the modern fortress
One entrepreneur capitalizing on this growing demand is David Widerhorn, who got into real estate after selling a tech company in 2017. Widerhorn, 38, recently built an heavily-secured home in Scottsdale, Ariz., that he is trying to sell for $15 million. In
early December, Widerhorn walked through the roughly 8,600-square-foot
house, pointing out 32 casino-grade cameras with AI-powered facial and
vehicle recognition capabilities. There is also a laser intrusion
detection system around the perimeter/
Pausing
at a steel double gate in front of the house, he warned that the
security system kicks in even before visitors reach the front door,
which is fashioned out of three-inch thick solid steel and has 13
deadbolts. Widerhorn said even the landscaping was designed to be a
deterrent: There are sour orange trees with four-inch spikes in concrete
planters on the edge of the property; just beyond those trees,
separating the house and street, is a moat.
“If
you try to run through that bush, it will be a bad day for you,”
Widerhorn said. Should anyone get past the trees, lasers will detect
motion and the system will call the police. Inside the house, three
ear-piercing alarms will go off and a fireplace surround in the great
room—which is made out of cristallo quartzite and can change color—turns
red.
The
home’s most fortified feature lies hidden behind a wood-paneled wall: a
reinforced concrete safe room with a 2,000-pound door and an air
filtration system built to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standards.
Widerhorn
declined to share specifics but said it cost more than $10 million to
build the house. About $1 million was spent on bullet-resistant smart
glass. And the front-entry security features cost more than $1 million.
In
Las Vegas, clients of luxury design-build firm Blue Heron are spending
between $100,000 and $1.5 million on security features, including safe
rooms and bunkers, said Andrew Kennedy, director of innovation and
strategy. Blue Heron is working on new ways to incorporate architecture
with security, such as exterior window shades that could be closed with
the touch of a button to protect the home’s occupants.
In
Surfside, Fla., the developer of the Delmore, a planned 37-unit
ultra-high-end condominium project designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and
with units priced at up to $200 million, has tapped a Washington
D.C.-based security firm to design the building’s security. The firm,
Active Security Consulting, was founded by former U.S. Marine Scout
Sniper Walter Hasser and has provided specialized protection for the
U.S. Department of Defense as well as the current and former Presidents
of the United States...
