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Most newcomers around the nation, however, have more permanent designs. Miami, for nearly three decades a home to Latin political and economic exiles, is now drawing high-rolling French entrepreneurs who like the Mediterranean pace of business there. The nomadic Arabs who favored Los Angeles have departed for London, say scene watchers, where their riyals go further; and affluent Asians, attracted by the schools and investment values, are snapping up six-figure residences in exclusive San Marino with suitcase cash.
Once settled, foreigners are elated by American entertaining styles. Italian-Brazilian Count Rudi Crespi, a Manhattan-based publicist for a number of Italian fashion houses, finds his evenings less predictable. "In Italy the host will call you three days in advance and tell you who your companions are going to be. In New York you run into interesting people, pick up ideas and get into lively discussions. If I wanted a programmed evening, I'd stay home and watch TV!"
Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the immigrant rich have come not to be entertained but to work. Young brokers, bankers and boutiquers emigrate because old-country commerce is too tradition-bound, slow and unresponsive for them. Even for someone with influence, it can take a month to get a phone installed in England, and no one would ever call a broker on the weekend. "In Switzerland if you ask, 'Why?', they tell you, 'Because that's the way it is,' " says New York Art Dealer Bettina Sulzer Milliken, 36, daughter of a Swiss industrialist, who with her American husband runs a gallery in SoHo. "In America the answer is 'Because that's the way we like it.' "
Economic opportunity is hardly the only attraction. Some newcomers simply fall in love with the size and grandeur of the land. Lebanese Engineer Walid Bohsali, 44, came to the bluegrass pastures of Lexington, Ky., to build a $5.2 million 18th century French-style horse farm for a Canada-based relative. Charmed by the quiet, order and beauty, he stayed on with his American wife Mary Lou and their two children and became a Thoroughbred racehorse broker for absentee owners. He has rented a house with an option to buy, and intends to apply for citizenship. Says Bohsali: "I don't think anybody who has come here would ever want to leave." To a growing number of the world's wealthy, the sentiment makes increasingly good horse sense.