The "stealth wealth" of the Washington D.C. area

From the Washington Post, a story about the new owners of the former Robert F. Kennedy residence in northern Virginia:

Once a town whose bright stars were government leaders, the nation’s capital has become a moneyed metropolis where entrepreneurs whose wealth is often amassed by doing business with the government are the new elite...

Over the past 30 years, an influx of deep-pocketed CEOs, executives and company founders have helped drive the transformation of the area from a buttoned-down capital into the most highly educated and affluent place in the country...

In recent years, the Washington area has seen a dramatic rise in “1-percenters,” households that make about $400,000 or more. Their ranks have jumped 65 percent in the past decade, from 32,000 people to 53,000. That growth has spawned a plethora of high-end retail establishments, restaurants that serve $22 cocktails and $110-a-night pet spas with doggie lap pools...

Many of these newly rich are tight-lipped about their money and unlikely to make an ostentatious display of it, Wolford said. This is particularly true within the defense contracting industry, which boomed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“It really would be awkward if you rolled up in your ‘phat’ Bentley to the Department of Defense,” Wolford said. “It’s stealth wealth in Washington, D.C. You do not know who’s got money. It’s partly the culture of Washington and partly the fact that more and more really wealthy people are focused on maintaining their privacy.”