What happens when a client hands a motor yacht designer a
relatively modern boat and tells him he needs it plusher and more decorative
within a few short months from purchase to delivery? There’s no time for major
structural changes. The designer in question is Andrew Winch of the United
Kingdom, whose many projects have been chronicled in the pages of this magazine.
Ingeniously, Winch had all lever door handles, stair rails and treads wrapped in
red faux crocodile leather imported from France. In an understated way, these
jewel-like features greatly heightened the sumptuousness of the burgundy hues of
the transitional-style refit of this Amels yacht. Even inside the steel and
glass lift Winch installed red leather panels with an intriguing surface
texture, a texture Winch describes as "like sand rippling." As defined by Winch,
yacht jewels can be beautiful and warm to the touch as well as brilliant to the
eye.
Top: Knowles adds shimmer with a sea horse on Taipan. Bottom: He
chose furnishings in black and white enriched with gold for
Chairman. Photography by Donna and Ken Chesler. (Click images to enlarge)
Patrick Knowles, a major designer based in the Fort Lauderdale
area, has no problem with gold, but he does with gaudy. The head on
Twilight, for example, just called out for a gold-plated sink.
"Chrome just didn’t do it. Gold gave it that classic, nautical
look," says Knowles, who took great pains to keep the lines clean and simple
nevertheless. In gently Southern inflections, he describes this restraint as the
"necessity of controlling the silhouette. When you have a swan faucet, just
leave it at that."
Great control is also made possible, Knowles points out, with
products from companies such as Sherle Wagner in New York because they make it
so easy to coordinate their semi-precious stone inlays with the marble and other
costly slabs specified for the walls and floors. This versatility and
craftsmanship becomes especially critical when a scheme calls for backlighting
translucent onyx vanities, for example, as on Kiss the Sky and
Chairman.
For Knowles, the concepts of scale and yacht jewelry go hand in
hand. He explains that to feel balanced, people need to feel there’s a
horizon line in any given space. Otherwise, the ceiling feels oppressive, as
though it’s bearing down on their heads. And especially in modern spaces with
low-profile furnishings, the floor can feel as though it’s rearing up. That’s
why in one transitional-style stateroom he’s working on, Knowles placed a pair
of columnar lamps to adjust what he calls the "vertical balance." The light they
give off is less important than the balancing function they provide between the
ceiling and floor.
Let us conclude with the vision of a lone sea horse. Knowles
had one recently sculpted, gold-plated and installed on top of a newel post at
the bottom of a stair rail in what he felt was a "too lackluster" salon. Now,
suddenly, there is with this piece of yacht jewelry a sense of "vertical
balance" indeed—a kind of definition and rightness to human scale. And, in the
end, what could be more memorable?
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