As if from another time: there are many clichés about housekeepers.
Bild: Action Press
Where gentlemen put their feet up, she discreetly ensures order. What it’s like to be a maid in the homes of the super rich.
MThey are also referred to as the “soul of the house”, others as a “good pearl” – we are talking about the housekeeper. The images and clichés surrounding the housekeeper in a high position come from dime novels and TV series such as “Downton Abbey”, which tells the story of an English noble family and their staff at the beginning of the 20th century. But what is it really like to work where the beautiful and the rich love and fight and run their household?
Gunda Frank* knows that. The trained druggist from Upper Franconia had run a hotel with gastronomy with her husband for years. After his death, a friend gave her the idea of working as a housekeeper in exclusive private households. She turned to the agency Consulting Home & Garden from the Rhine-Main area and started with the first client. That’s fifteen years ago. Since then Frank has worked on estates all over Germany, from Bavaria to Lower Saxony, from Bremen to Swabia.