Love isn’t the only thing money can’t buy. Time is the ultimate commodity — and even the new moneyed class in America can’t snap it up fast enough. But as this group has grown, new industries have emerged to help harried professionals manage their lives.

“We are time brokers. We are giving you your life back,” the founder of Triangle Concierge, a business that trains future practitioners, Katharine Giovanni, said.

Personal concierge services provide in some ways what hotels do. They’ll book dinner reservations or procure theater tickets. But the service goes beyond entertainment to managing and organizing daily life; they’ll deal with the boring stuff, too, so you don’t have to.

One of the most recognized names in the business is Quintessentially, a British company founded in 2000, with offices in 31 cities, including New York. There are five levels of membership, the most popular of which is Dedicated Service: For an annual fee of $3,500 a person (or $5,000 a couple), an account manager will be on hand to provide “proactive and customized services” and function “like an extraordinarily well-connected, full-time personal assistant.”

Who are the customers for concierge services? In 2006, the number of American households with a net worth of more than $5 million — not including the value of a primary home — increased 23% from 2005, according to a survey by a consulting firm specializing in the affluent, the Spectrem Group. That bolsters a finding by the Annual Survey of Affluence & Wealth in America: 69% of households with an annual discretionary income of $125,000 or more made their money in the last 15 years.

The testimonials provided by Quintessentially suggest that members are particularly grateful for assistance in booking travel arrangements, retrieving forgotten items, and finding good gifts. A few also take the opportunity to offer praise in comparison to the service they experienced from a competitor: the American Express Centurion Card.

But Quintessentially also includes proactive services, which don’t exactly fall into the time-saving category. The company’s communications director, Kody Gurfein, gives the example of calling up a member who is known to love Italian food when a new restaurant opens or when there is a cancellation at Babbo. In one case, the personal service meant shutting down the Manolo Blahnik boutique for an hour and letting a member shop an assortment of shoes preselected in her size.

Indeed, the personal assistant function is only one part of the concierge service. Special access and experience are the holy grail. To attain them, real estate developers are partnering with concierge service providers to give residents and guests a level of attention that makes them feel looked after and, perhaps more important, that they have something no one else has.

In New York, Quintessentially provides the in-house concierge service at the London NYC hotel, but also at residential developments including One Beacon Court and 20 Pine St.

“It’s not just enough anymore to have a beautiful place to live,” Ms. Gurfein said.

One man who knows that well is Steven Kass, the founder and CEO of American Leisure, a company that designs and operates leisure facilities for new properties. His clients include the Setai and the Visionaire in New York, as well as Trump Plaza in New Jersey.

Of the 30 years he has been in business, the last two years have seen the exceptional growth: As new properties go up, competition increases for residents, and developers need to offer more dazzle.

“People are no longer willing to settle for just a roof over their heads,” Mr. Kass said. “The real estate world wants to provide better things to get people to live in their communities. Facilities need to be designed at a certain level, and they need to be programmed at a certain level.”

For Mr. Kass, this can mean building a demonstration kitchen space into a new residential property — and then running the facility and booking the four-star chefs so that owners can pad downstairs to get a lesson.

Or it can mean installing in a new high-rise residential building, his latest product: the Aqua Grotto, a 2,500-square-foot spa that includes a social sauna, a fire pit, a Turkish hammam, a Watsu pool, a massaging waterfall, experiential showers, and treatment rooms. All of which are designed so that owners can mingle and talk while relaxing. And in case you’re wondering about the “experiential showers,” the press materials describe them as such: “semi-enclosed computerized showers that offer variable water pressure, the sounds of thunder and lightning, and the aroma of impending rain.”

Nothing like taking a shower in an electrical storm. But hey, no one else on the block will have it.

“There’s an exclusivity to it,” Mr. Kass said. “We provide a service and the staff. We create a country-clublike atmosphere at the location.”

The need to have people who understand how to provide the right atmosphere and service is what has made Ms. Giovanni’s business flourish. She started a personal concierge service in the 1980s, and then realized — as advice seekers asked her about launching concierge services — the opportunity to teach: She now offers workshops and a how-to book. Her clients are “people are starting their own business or working for a company. Some corporations send people to me,” she said.

What she sees, however, is that the need for help is not just among the ultrarich. “It’s in almost every demographic. We are a time-starved nation.”

pcatton@nysun.com