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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Wealthy clients pay Lisa Clampitt thousands of dollars to spend the evening with models, Playboy bunnies and other curvy sirens. But it's all perfectly legal.
Oct 2, 2002 | Are you a wealthy, dynamic guy who needs help getting dates? Are you a beautiful, dynamic woman looking for a relationship? VIP Life is a dating service that bills itself as "A Way of Life," and the ultimate goal for most of the members is marriage. But it's only men who have to pay to belong to this club, which provides unlimited access to more than 200 gorgeous women -- many of them actresses and models -- who have passed the inspection of matchmaker Lisa Clampitt.
When I met with Clampitt to talk about VIP Life, I was half expecting someone like Sydney Biddle Barrows, or maybe Heidi Fleiss before prison. But Clampitt is neither. This enterprising, attractive, divorced 38-year-old brunette is a graduate of NYU and University of Michigan. She worked for 13 years as a pediatric social worker counseling parents of hospitalized children who were sick or traumatized. The emotional burden took its toll and now she's peddling storybook romance.
Or is it anti-romance? No man wants to be desired just for his money. And no woman wants to be loved just for her looks. But what little girl doesn't fantasize about growing up beautiful and snaring a loaded man? And what red-blooded man doesn't lust for a sex kitten he can call his own?
I can't help but think of the 1953 movie "How to Marry a Millionaire" with Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. Monroe's character announces, as the three models lounge on the terrace of their Upper East Side apartment: "I want to marry a Rockefeller."
"Which one?" asks Betty Grable.
"I don't care," says Monroe.
The threesome has to go to the trouble of subletting fancy digs, financing it by selling every scrap of furniture, and pretending to be rich until they can snare a wealthy husband. And then they all end up marrying for love anyway.
But that scenario is pretty consistent with the stories we girls grow up with. Cinderella. "Beauty and the Beast." "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." "Sabrina." "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The Material Girl. It's great to marry someone with money, the story goes, but only if you really love him.
But this is for real. And the women don't have to pretend to have money or even pay a thing to be in Clampitt's service. It's the men who put up the money -- $10,000 to $20,000 a year -- lump sum, in advance, credit cards accepted. Benefits of the club include image consultation, invitations to special events, personal shopping services, concierge services and access to exclusive nightclubs, restaurants, parties, private jets, yachts and villas.
When I blanch at the fees, Clampitt reassures me that no one is going to scrape together the last $10,000 in his bank account to join. Of the 60 men who are currently members, she says, "It's going to be something he can afford, and he can be a part of this comfortably."
"If they live in London," she continues, "they're not going to use all the events." So these men can opt for the $10,000 basic membership and then can pay for everything else as they choose.
To be a member, the bachelors first have to interview with Clampitt and be deemed appropriate for her service. "We don't screen in terms of saying you have to have $5 million in the bank. But the men are expected to maintain a certain lifestyle." They have to be, she says, "high-quality, dynamic people."
VIP Life, only in existence since February, has just moved into a new loft on Fifth Avenue and 16th Street. A couple of times a month Clampitt, who prides herself on her parties, holds happy hours in the loft. The space is surprisingly unostentatious: Urban Outfitters chic, with leopard-skin fluffy pillows on a black leather sofa, silver and gold shimmery curtains, and black-and-white artsy/sexy photographs on the wall. "We light candles and it's intimate and fun. People don't want to leave."
In addition to the parties, VIP Life nurtures a network of "in the know" contacts. So if a client decides he wants to go to "The Producers" that night and get into Nobu for dinner -- places usually impossible to penetrate on short notice -- "we make that happen." She nurtures relationships with people connected to the hot parties and can get her clients on the guest list. "Not just to be in the background," she says. "He'll get the VIP room, the bottle service." And, of course, the girl to keep him company.
The client, by the way, still pays for the restaurant check, the show, the private jet. And what they do "behind closed doors" is completely up to the two consenting adults.
