Hot Yachts; Interior décor turns luxury boats into stylish homes
3/27/2006 9:32:41 AM by James H. Burnett III
Sofa in your vehicle? Fold-down flat screen TV?
Hate to say it, but if that’s all you’ve got, you’re dining on small potatoes, Pimp My Ride stuff.
The really big thing in personalized vehicles is not just items you can find in any nice waiting room. It’s all about turning your ride into a second …or third, or fourth home.
Oh, and did we mention that the ride probably should be rockin’ a hull and a bow instead of a chrome grill and headlights?
Such was an unofficial theme recently at the 18th annual Yacht & Brokerage Show — aka The Superyacht Show, where experts insisted that luxury boats are no longer just floating cocktail parties.
“Boats
are like creating jewels, because they are their own
environment, and you can make them like home without them being tied to
a neighborhood or a structure,” said Carol Williamson, president of
Portland, Ore.-based Carol Williamson & Associates interior
decorators. Williamson, who has seen her business shift in recent years
to more yachts than homes or offices, said the most notable change is
the upscale but run-of-the-mill items boat owners are requesting:
living room suites of soft leathers and chenille, play rooms, carpets
conducive to bare feet, and easy-to-use kitchens.
“You found as recently as 10 years ago a lot of older yacht owners who followed certain traditions strictly when it came to use of a yacht,” said Mary Sudasassi, whose Haber & Quinn Public Relations company helped organize the show.
“With more younger people owning yachts, and more families, you are seeing a difference.”
Stephanie and Barry Zekelman may demonstrate the changing of the yachting guard more than anyone. They own the 123-foot Heesen Yachts-built Man of Steel, a $16.3 million craft that boasts, among other things, a formal dining room, restaurant-caliber kitchen, Jacuzzi and bar, four staterooms (bedrooms, for you landlubbers) and a gym.
In spite of Man of Steel’s obvious superyacht amenities, Stephanie insisted hers really isn’t a yachting family.
“We’re more a boating family. There is a difference,” she said. “First of all, we’re younger — I’m 36 and Barry’s 38 — and we have children. Come onto our boat and you’ll find a toy sooner than you’d find something over the top.
“You won’t find us in St. Barts or the south of France.”
Man of Steel, named for the industry in which Barry earns his money, holds so many of the Zekelmans’ personal items, Stephanie said, “that we consider it our floating condo, a place we can wake up in the morning and walk around in our jammies or sweats.”
The walls are zebra wood, fit for a nice family room, and one stateroom features bunk beds and kid-friendly murals.
And all the furniture is dark — a must, explained Stephanie, who decorated the boat, when you have an 8- and 4-year-old.
Where the Zekelmans wanted their yacht to project a
comfortable vacation home, Riviera Beach-based speed yacht guru John
Rosatti wanted his vessel, Nice ‘n Easy, to be a comfortable and
elegant primary home. Albeit, a $28 million, 157-foot-long primary
home.
Never mind the elevator to shorten the trip between decks.
There’s the dining room with elegant paintings and a 12-seat table. The interior bar, with full-sized chairs. The living room, with earth-toned leather couches and a flat-screen TV. And countertops, bathroom floors and walls throughout covered with more than 12,000 pounds of marble.
“I just feel like these boats are incredible palettes,” said decorator Williamson.
She said the boom in family-friendly yachts since she decorated her first boat 4 1/2 years ago has changed the focus of her business to 60 percent floating homes and 40 percent land structures.
Since 2002, orders for superyachts — those 80 feet and longer — have increased globally from 520 to 695, according to Yachts International magazine.
“It is true, people want these vessels designed and decorated in a way that they could live on them without missing a beat,” Williamson said, rubbing her hand across a high gloss American walnut wall and nodding toward a piano she had installed for one of Rosatti’s daughters.
And, as long as yachts keep growing, Williamson won’t have to turn down any decorating request.
“I’ve had a 150-gallon saltwater aquarium installed,” Williamson said of her first project, Mystic. “And, on another yacht, Big Bad John — the name was later changed to Walkabout — we placed a revolving piano.”
Not always convinced that bigger is better, Francisco Frediani, sales and marketing director for Italian boat-builder Riva, said he admires superyachts for the decorating opportunities they offer. But he sells a lot more $1.5 million, 52-foot Rivales.
“It is not the largest yacht out here, but I assure you it makes one of the best uses of its space inside,” Frediani said.
If the Man of Steel is a condo and Nice n’ Easy a mansion, the Rivale is a small but upscale apartment.
“Think of it as a very nice suite,” Frediani said, pointing to two guest cabins that featured twin-sized beds and access to bathrooms with sliding doors to save space, hollow ottoman chairs for storage, and numerous wall panels that fold out to tables.
And, what’s a piece of Italian elegance without a good cup of Joe?
“We are European,” Frediani said, opening a cupboard and revealing a tiny stainless steel contraption. “So you know we must have espresso.”