Paul allen owned an island in the san juans - when i used to fly to my mothers on Orcas we had to land first at paul allens airport... There was a beauty and a freedom i used to feel from that experience: There was no tower, nor staff; just a landing strip and we would fly in - do our thing and then take off again. It was awesome... and i loved it, because we talk about america being the “land of the free” but we are…
Owning a private island definetly requires you to be super-wealthy, but aviation doesn't necessarily require that. My dad wouldn't even qualify as upper-middle-class, and he has a private grass strip for an ultralight. In many parts of the country, 40 acres isn't that expensive (my father paid 40k for the land, the entire place was under 200k. And many airports aren't towered, I guarantee there is an untowered airport within reasonable driving distance if any metro area in the US; most private pilots can't afford hangar space at a towered airport, and the larger airports aren't very friendly to small private planes anyway.
Note however that aviation almost requires you to have at least a middle class income now due to rising costs, even for a homebuilt. Whereas my dad was able to afford a used piper cub in the early 70s while he was a student, with no financial help from his parents.
Edit:typo