Design Showcase: Floor Show
Marilyn Mower
04/01/2005

Historically speaking, plush wall-to-wall carpets are a recent development not much older than electric lights and substantially younger than yachting’s Golden Age. Well into the 1850s, floors — even in the best homes — generally consisted of stenciled or polished pine or oak planks topped with painted canvas floor cloths, straw mats or braided rag rugs.

Floor coverings are a room’s fifth wall, establishing the theme and providing a tactile experience. Top photograph courtesy Codecasa. Bottom photograph courtesy Edelman Leather. (Click images to enlarge)  

Before mechanical looms, every carpet was woven or knotted by hand in a process relatively unchanged since the 14th century. Expensive and heavily taxed, rugs often were displayed on walls as works of art. The invention of steam-powered looms finally brought carpets to the masses. The great economies of scale made possible by the industrial revolution alsogenerated a taste for newness.

The Victorians adapted parquetry to floors, often applying it to a room’s perimeter to act as a border for carpets in tight floral patterns. Linoleum, made from compressed cork and linseed oil, was a huge hit in the late 19th century. At the turn of the 20th century, the newest floor fashion was knotted-weave Axeminster carpets available with changeable, contrasting borders.

Top: Photograph courtesy Codecasa. Bottom: Photograph courtesy Edward Fields. (Click images to enlarge)

Despite the great fortunes spent on yachts from the 1890s to the 1930s, floor fashions lagged behind. Most cabin soles were made of polished timber dotted with a profusion of kilim or Aubusson-style carpets, which could be rolled up and stored during a passage. In the drawing rooms of the great steam yachts, strips of plain pile carpet often were tacked into place to cover the floor.

Made-to-measure carpets came into vogue for yachts beginning with the 1950s. It wasn’t until the late 1970s, however, that professional interior designers started to have an impact on yachts. With them came the view that floor coverings could be more than neutral ground. Called the "fifth wall," carpets established the design theme rather than tying it together. This trend reached its zenith in the early 1990s with the elaborate, multicolored, carved pile carpets featuring sparkling fiber-optics laid aboard such yachts as Octopussy and Night Crossing.

Top: Photograph by Martin Fine. Bottom:  Photograph courtesy Martin Patrick Evan. (Click images to enlarge)

Today, many designers looking for something new in floor coverings for the finest yachts under construction are mining the past.

"Everything old is new again,’" says Jack Fields, who heads the custom carpet company launched by his father, Edward Fields. "Today, we have designers coming in who were born after the seventies and they look at some of our area rug patterns created forty or fifty years ago by Raymond Lowey and they are just blown away. They alter a stripe here or a color there, revamping and refreshing a classic into something perfect for today.

"At the highest levels, there is always a competition for uniqueness. These are customers who want something different and we try to create a fantasy look for them," says Jack Fields.While many designers utilize the technique of bordering a yacht’s built-in furniture with carpet in a different pattern than the central design, Fields says that recently he’s received requests for a look he describes as "a rug within a carpet," featuring a loop pile for the field and a cut pile of different height and texture in the center rug. "This works well for a central seating area where there is less traffic on the cut pile," says Fields.

Tongue and groove mahogany and an antique Persian carpet replicate yachting’s Golden Age aboard the sloop Savannah. Photograph courtesy Ken Maguire. (Click image to enlarge)

Dickie Bannenberg, who has taken the reins of his famous late father’s design studio, sees a trend toward luxury and unusual fibers. "We are doing a really groovy retro-contemporary residence [read Austin Powers] in London that mixes walnut parquet with ultra-soft cut pile carpets in natural, light brown llama wool. It is unbelievably soft and just invites you to lounge on the floor," he says.

Two examples of cut pile carpets featuring 19th century designs. Top: In the salon, aboard the 138-foot Baglietto Blue Eyes, the Chinoise-style area rug is placed atop a planked floor. Designer Francesco Paszkowski has used the rug to unify the sitting area and reinforce the design’s classic themes. Bottom: Designer John Munford used a compass rose motif for a rug within a carpet look to create a signature space in the lower foyer of the Feadship Rasselas. (Click images to enlarge) 

While all luxury fibers – mohair and silk included – command a luxury price, Bannenberg considers the llama carpet’s cost moderate at $150 per square yard.

Oliver Treutlein is the owner of upscale OT Carpets in Meerbusch, Germany. Among his new offerings is a linen-wool blend where the fibers are mixed in the spinning process. "The linen fibers add a patina, an old-world luster, to the floor and are more practical than wool-silk blends," says Treutlein. OT carpets are woven in Switzerland and finished in Germany by hand. "The sisal look is out in Europe," Treutlein says. "Today it is all about richness and colors, flowers or decoration at full volume."

Scott Cole of Ardeo Design in Seattle reports that aboard most of his recent commissions, main-deck rooms feature varnished teak plank floors loosely covered with custom area rugs that sometimes give the illusion that furniture is sitting on top of them. "It’s the casual elegance look for the Pacific Northwest," Cole says. "Typically, our clients who want wall-to-wall will choose a field [borderless] carpet. If you use a border detail, I think you have to follow that throughout the yacht." But wood floors, often with stone inlay, says Cole, are still his top request. (Click image to enlarge)

Top: The Heesen 3700 Lady Ingeborg, showcases the latest trend in modern wood soles. Designer Frank Laupman created ash chevrons splined with stainless steel bands. Bottom: A charming, modern hand-knotted carpet in colorful Himalayan wool by Odegard called "Go Fish." (Click images to enlarge)

Carolina designer Dawn Moffitt also reports that non-carpet tactile surfaces are in. Two of her favorites are new twists on old ideas. Cork tile, for example – the yacht flooring of choice in the 1950s – is making a comeback. This resilient, natural acoustic material is now available in several patterns and subtle shadings and can be infused with antimicrobal agents, which makes it perfect for galley floors. Another renewable resource making its way into yacht flooring is bamboo. "For those who like the tradition of a planked floor, bamboo offers a more contemporary twist and it is very durable," said Moffitt. "We are also incorporating glass and metal tiles as decorative elements in wood and stone floors."

In the constrained confines of yacht interiors, every design element plays a critical role but none more so than floor coverings. Retro, modern or in between, floor coverings establish design themes from the bottom up.