Sitting down for gourmet fish and chips and sushi at the Ocean Grill, 14-year-old Melano Popiashvili and her pals discuss their morning horseback ride through Central Park and the fun afternoon that lies ahead — a chauffeur-driven tour in a stretch limousine that will stop by FAO Schwarz and a tony equestrian store.
“Traveling in the limo will be really cool,” says Popiashvili, a high school sophomore from Ridgewood, NJ. Sipping Shirley Temples with her fellow tweens, 11-year-old Anna Friedland of Manhattan breathlessly chimes in: “I’m going to buy my favorite candy to take back to the dorm.”
The glamorous trip to the city — a $600 optional extra for lucky students enrolled at the International Riding Camp in the southern Catskills — is arguably the highlight of the 2014 summer program operated by the ritzy upstate stables complex.
Other attractions include up to 4.5 hours per day of horseback riding, water-skiing on a nearby lake and the chance to spend a luxury three-night break in the Hamptons.
“We’re one of the premiere camps in the world for girls who live and breathe horses,” says Arno Mares, founder and director of the $2,150-per-week institution (the discounted price for an eight-week stay totals $12,500).
“They come here to fulfill their dreams.”
For those aiming for the full-scale fantasy, deep-pocketed parents can sign up their daughters for the camp’s annual $8,500 eight-day Russian riding vacation in Moscow and St. Petersburg, scheduled for next month.
While the rest of us might associate sleep-away camps with ramshackle huts, creepy-crawlies and a diet of sloppy joes, upscale venues catering to the wealthy leave the “Hello Muddah” prototype in the dust.
They offer the kind of facilities you’d expect from a five-star resort — air-conditioned bunks, organic food, state-of-the-art fitness equipment, so-called “wellness centers” instead of sick bays and a veritable who’s who of pro sports instructors.
In common with the International Riding Camp, these swanky, high-class playgrounds come with a price tag to match. The average fee for a two-month slot at a blue-chip camp in the Northeast — the most desirable “Ivy League” venues being camps Mataponi, Wildwood and Androscoggin, which are concentrated in the bucolic lakes and mountains of Maine — is around $11,000. That’s the equivalent of a semester at a state university.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, High Cascades, a trendy snowboarding camp based on Oregon’s Mount Hood, charges clients up to $3,990 per week. For that, your little thrill-seeker gets private chalet accommodation and one-on-one coaching with a team headed by Bud Keene, who trained two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White.
Despite the Great Recession, business is booming at these pricey summer camps. Many are booked nine months in advance. In order to stay competitive over the last few years, owners have sunk millions of dollars into shiny new attractions, such as the expansive lakeside creative arts and sports center at camps Equinunk and Blue Ridge in Pennsylvania and a giant water slide at Timber Lake Camp in upstate New York.
It’s a question of supply and demand. Build the 8,000-square-foot indoor field house (like the impressive hockey, tennis and basketball facility at Camp Laurel in Maine), and the spawn of Wall Street will come.
“Discerning parents, like all parents, want the best for their children, and choose to appropriately invest in them, based on their personal means,” says Jill Tipograph, CEO of the Midtown consulting firm Everything Summer, which helps well-heeled parents choose suitable camps and programs for their kids and teens.
“They have high standards for how they live their lives, including the best educational and instructive resources for their children. Wanting the best camp for their child is an extension of this.”
As she points out, the bonding experience of camp and the relationships that are forged frequently pay off in the long term.
“Adults often cite their camp friends as the most important ones in their life,” continues Tipograph.
“Connections through camps often lead to college friendships and networking. The investment in camp has a lifetime value.”
While her son Ben might only be 7, Long Islander Sandy Burko was already thinking of the future when she signed him up for the $12,000, eight-week Timber Lake Camp. The establishment prides itself on its golf coaching, gluten-free buffet choices, aquatic sports program and air-conditioned bunks (although Burko says the A/C is rarely turned on because of the pleasant climate, and is mainly used by kids with allergies).
“During the tour last summer, I wasn’t just looking at kids my son’s age, I wanted to see how the older children turned out,” recalls 33-year-old Burko, the wife of a chief financial officer, of Roslyn, NY.
“I was floored by the Michigan college student [who was our tour guide] because he was so polite and put-together. He said: ‘Timber Lake made me like that.’ He was doing an internship at a law firm that he got connected to through his first camp counselor. That’s the sort of relationship that you establish and sustain at camp.
“Timber Lake has a philosophy of sportsmanship, tolerance, appreciation and respect. People might say it’s the ‘jazziest, most spoiled camp ever’ because of the A/C and the amazing facilities, but it’s way more than that.”
Others reveal that the “keeping up with the Joneses” element that has inevitably crept into the blue-chip Northeast camp scene has had a less wholesome effect.
“These camps are really broken up into more pampered and more rustic,” says Manhattan mom-of-two Erika Katz, a parenting and beauty expert who wrote the book “Bonding Over Beauty: A Mother-Daughter Guide to Foster Self-Esteem, Confidence and Trust.”
“Oftentimes it’s not coming from the child. Most children are not saying, ‘Mom, I need air conditioning!’ The parent is imposing their own ideals onto their child.
“They might say: ‘My child could never be in a camp without air-con!’ But, of course, your child can and should rough it a bit. There are parents who like to brag about the amenities, the gourmet chef and the sheer fabulousness of their kids’ camp just to one-up each other in the way they might do about their vacations or their homes.
“Unfortunately, there are always going to be parents who view their child’s camp in terms of social status.”
But down-to-earth types who send their kids to these chichi camps are ready to defend their decision. Stay-at-home mom Staci Rama, 32, of Rye, NY, who paid $7,400 for her 10-year-old daughter Ava’s month-long stay at the International Riding Camp, maintains it is worth every cent.
“She is having the time of her life,” says Rama, who presented Ava with the camp’s extracurricular shopping and riding trip to Manhattan as a surprise gift for graduating elementary school.
“She has made friends with girls from all over the world — her roommate is from Paris and her closest friend is from Washington, DC — and has become so much more independent and confident.”
Chimes in Mares, the owner of the camp: “We serve organic food and have tennis instructors from England, but that isn’t so important to the girls.
“They don’t care whether the dorms are luxurious or not. Given the choice, they’d rather sleep in the stables with the horses.”