Want to Live Like the Rich? It’s All in the Mind, or So They Say

Lee McGloin is waiting to hear from Neil Diamond.

Like Diamond, McGloin makes gold records. But unlike Diamond, he can’t carry a tune.

Instead, McGloin carries the gold-plated keys to his 24-karat gold-plating service. His Tustin-based company, California Gold Record Co., specializes in placing gold plating on records, albums, and even on customized jukeboxes. In fact, if Neil Diamond wants to order a gold-plated Wurlitzer filled with 52 of his own gold-plated hits, McGloin says he’ll sell it to him for $50,000.

If this sounds like the sort of luxury reserved for the idle rich, you can always use your American Express Gold Card to buy a single gold-plated record--for a mere $69.

And if you’d like to look, the glimmering jukebox is on display at the 2nd Luxury Lifestyles Show, which completes a four-day run today at the Anaheim Convention Center. The show is living proof that you don’t have to be rich to be surrounded by riches.

“Luxury is a state of mind,” said show co-producer Dan Greene, “and not the balance in your bank account.” The show features more than $30 million in merchandise by more than 500 exhibitors. For a $5 admission fee, a visitor not only can see McGloin’s gold jukebox but can buy a piece of a $1-million racehorse, purchase shares in a Colorado oil well, or--for under $100,000--become the proud owner of a sporty airplane that can travel at 252 m.p.h.

A Return to Elegance

And people who don’t want to buy can simply gawk at the display of goodies.

In some ways, the show is a return to the elegantly planned consumer shows of years past, promoters say.

“For the past 15 years or so, consumer shows have become very boring and mundane. People expect to get business by putting up card tables and giving away stuffed dogs,” Green said. “We’re trying to rekindle the fire in consumers to come out and see a good show.”

But despite these lofty goals--and some splashy exhibits--the Luxury Lifestyles Show is really a glorified home-improvement show. Stuffed between the $100,000 Italian sports car exhibits and glitzy investment-opportunity booths are hordes of basic home-improvement exhibitors, ranging from folks who want to put weatherproof windows in your home to salesmen with fancy cooking implements that are upscale versions of Veg-o-Matics.

Still, it is the ostentatious that draws showgoers--upwards of 30,000 people before the exhibition closes tonight.

One Guest Bought a Rolls

“It’s a place to go and dream,” said Caroln Kilgore, co-publisher of West Coast Lifestyles, a home improvement magazine publisher in Mission Viejo. The show is primarily an attraction for the middle class to see how the upper class lives, she said.

But the elite find their way to the show, too. Bette Midler, for example, was spotted perusing the exhibits at last year’s premiere show in Los Angeles. And before that show ended, one guest purchased a $180,000 Rolls-Royce, while two others drove out in $100,000-plus Clenets. This year, at $8,500 each, some 125 attendees can gallop away with a piece of a racehorse, appropriately named We Share.

The 2-year-old filly was sired by Conquistador Cielo, the horse that won the 1982 Belmont Stakes. What’s more, We Share will be trained by Charlie Whittingham, who trained this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Ferdinand. “The horse will race here in California,” said Lester Kent, a general partner at Hascol Farms Associates of Toluca Lake. “It adds to the excitement when you can go to a race and watch your own horse run.”

Likewise, it adds to the excitement of flying to pilot your own plane. A Mooney 252--named after its top speed--seemed to attract more than its share of curiosity seekers.

“We’ll get a couple dozen people flying as a result of this exhibit,” said Terry Hodak, Western sales manager for Mooney aircraft. “And flying lessons eventually lead to airplane ownership.”

Oil Investors Sought

Having a hard time drumming up much interest when the show opened Thursday was Oil Inc., a Los Angeles oil-investment firm selling $3,500 to $100,000 shares in undrilled oil fields. “There are tremendous buys in oil right now,” said Donald J. Yott, chairman. Despite the lack of buyers Thursday afternoon, he said that he hoped to pick up 40 investors, for a total of $250,000, over the span of the show.

Looking for that same sort of person who can plunk down $100,000 for a piece of an undrilled oil pool was Andee Atkisson, a designer at Peter Vitalie Co., a custom billiard table manufacturer in Anaheim.

She was hoping to sell a $70,000 billiard table, supported on a base of carved wooden unicorns with real diamond-chip eyes. “I’d love to find an oil man who wants a billiard table carved with an oil derrick base,” she said.

Although they weren’t looking for oil derricks or diamond-chip billiard tables, Edie Phillips and William Stanchel drove down from Los Angeles, hoping to see some unusual exhibits. They weren’t disappointed.

“We’ve gone up and down every aisle,” said Stanchel. “We just want to make sure that the rich and famous don’t have anything on us.”

The couple collected business cards from many of the exhibitors. Stanchel said one salesman may have convinced him to eventually buy a recreational vehicle.