It is not your typical pied-a-terre. For one thing, it floats, glides or whooshes off at formidable speed. And this kind of crash pad, in sizes ranging from studio apartment to luxury penthouse, always has a view. One that changes at will.
To the most dedicated owners, boats are more than recreational vehicles. Even if their use is confined only to the summer months in Chicago, sail or motorboats can be designed to feel like home, with just the basics or the most indulgent of creature comforts.
Summer dock rentals range from $375 for a 25-foot buoy to several thousand dollars, depending on the facility and the length of the boat, according to Bob Nelson, who heads up that department for the Chicago Park District. Nearly 5,000 vessels are moored in the city`s eight harbors. Some of the boats, like other driving toys, are loaded with extras. Others are bare-bones models, with the most minimal living environments. For some, boats are a weekend diversion; for others, a lifestyle.
Take Michael Gesas, for example. When he purchased a 40-foot Morgan, he enjoyed sailing so much that he boldly decided to live on his boat. Year
`round. In Chicago. ”I`m single,” Gesas says. ”I figured, `What the heck? I`ll do it for a year.` It`s been three.”
Although acquaintances of the 32-year-old bankruptcy lawyer think at first that he has perhaps been out in the sun too long, they understand when he takes them for a cruise on his yacht, Bansai.
The sailboat has a surprising amount of room below. It`s a little jewel of a space, with gleaming teak floors striped in oak and accents of brass, such as the porthole frame, a British import. The craft is equipped with a full freezer and refrigerator (which, he says, will hold eight cases of beer) that operate on a 12-volt electrical system; there also is an auxiliary diesel engine. The one-person kitchen includes a microwave and an alcohol stove that is gimbaled (on a swivel that keeps it level during sailing).
”Everything is designed to be tucked out of the way,” Gesas says, demonstrating a foldaway table that comfortably seats eight. ”There are about 68 compartments-you`d never believe how much is stored in them.”
There`s a cellular telephone system, color television and a videocassette recorder positioned so that the TV can be viewed from either of two facing cushioned benches. A waterproof speaker system allows him to enjoy music or French tapes (he is learning the language). Besides ship-to-shore
communications, Gesas has full navigation computers so that he can plot his itinerary.
”I do a lot of solo sailing,” he says, ”so I had to customize the boat so that I could live on it for several weeks at a time.” His three-week, mid- July excursion took him north, up one side of Michigan, from Holland to Mackinac Island, around toward Wisconsin and Washington Island and back south around Door County. He packed his new foldup bicycle, which allows him to go off to the grocery once he anchors; he also can zip to shore on a 12-foot inflatable raft.
The sailboat also is equipped with radar. ”I do a lot of night crossings. There`s nothing like hearing a freighter horn in the fog. You don`t know how close it may be.”
Gesas` may well be the first boat in the harbor. His traditional dock date is April 15, the day most folks are scurrying off to send their tax forms to the IRS, and the boat remains in the slip until about Nov. 15, ”when the Park District throws me out,” he says with a chuckle.
The Chicago River has become his winter home. ”Sailboats are so much below the water line-about 40 percent, as opposed to perhaps 10 percent or less with motorboats,” he explains. ”You do get a substantial amount of heat from the water, which generally doesn`t go below 32 degrees, and together with the heat on the boat, even if it`s 20 degrees outdoors, it feels hot.” Down jackets also help.
Gesas` vanity plates read CDOG 7, and his business cards, ”Attorney at sea, captain.” Although he loves to entertain those who work in his firm as well as clients, he also brings work aboard.
”Once I`m out on the water, I have a different perspective. This is the greatest source of stress relief.”
Ira J. Kaufman might say the same thing, but his wife, Audrey, sometimes may disagree. ”My life can be highly stressful,” she says, laughing heartily. ”My husband will call and say we`re having a few people for cocktails, and it may end up dinner for 20.”
For Kaufman, chairman of Exchange National Bank, the city`s sixth largest, and chairman of Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group Inc., a Chicago-based investment banking firm, home on the water is aboard the Grey Mist II, which the couple have owned for about 16 years.
Docked this summer for the first time in Chicago, the 102-foot motor yacht was brought up from Florida for a refurbishing of the interior. The original work, done by interior designer Larry N. Deutsch, was featured in Architectural Digest in 1976.
Audrey Kaufman didn`t hesitate to call an interior designer. ”The Grey Mist is too large to be `boaty.` I couldn`t have cute little red, white and blue things all around.”
”The boat was very ugly,” designer Deutsch says. ”It had dark mahogany beams and trim, Mediterranean and Chinese furniture. It needed to be revitalized. The Kaufmans wanted style, but they wanted something comfortable enough so you wouldn`t feel that you couldn`t touch things when you walked in. They wanted the boat to be dramatic, open but practical and real.”
The aft deck was enclosed to create a sitting room with very large picture windows. In the dining room, a library effect was created with a false bookcase, with leather bindings crafted by the Monastery Hill Bindery. There are built-ins (television, stereo system) and a fully equipped galley. Audrey recently commissioned artist Chuck Nitti to paint the walls after they had been upholstered in canvas.
”The walls on a boat always are so thin and ugly,” she says. ”And they`re so important because there`s so much wall. So Nitti applied many, many layers of paint in about five different colors in a kind of stippling effect. It`s wonderful.”
When the main salon is redecorated, it, too, will feature a softer color palette of, as she puts it, ”now colors that are kind of opaline, sort of off-shades.”
The Kaufmans also love to entertain, and Audrey is particularly fond of creating striking tablescapes for her dinner guests. ”I have served sit-down Thanksgiving dinner for 24,” she says. ”But I won`t set a formal table. I think of it as boring, too predictable. I don`t like tablecloths. I love placemats and beautiful napkins and napkin rings. I don`t usually use flowers as a centerpiece; instead, I find something on the boat, like my wooden Indonesian ladies. My favorite is setting up the table on the back deck. At night it looks like you`re sitting in a penthouse.”
Entertaining is even more casual aboard the Capricorn, the 32-foot Carver that is owned by Laurie Cowall. Cowall, an interior designer, likes to keep the cooking and presentation simple.
”I`ve got a gas grill on the side. We do hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken. I toss some corn on the cob in the microwave. And it`s all paper plates and napkins, so I don`t have to wash dishes. I don`t have a dishwasher or help on board.”
Last year, Cowall invested about $5,000 to create a more comfortable on-deck spot for dining and savoring the ride. He designed a banquette of white Formica, trimmed in teak and upholstered in white Naugahyde. Beneath the cushions, the tops lift to reveal ample storage. ”It`s an engineering feat,” Cowall says of the built-in, executed by Interior Specialties. He purchased a teak table from a yachting catalogue, a bargain ”reduced from three-something to about $189.” He tosses a blue-and-white-checked tablecloth over it, a souvenir from the Greek Islands, and voila! Dinner is served.
The laid-back approach is one that boater John Phillips also favors. ”I don`t like any of these formal things,” Phillips says. ”I like my guests to take off their shoes, relax and feel like they`re at home.”
In a manner of speaking. When guests visit the Illusion, it`s no illusion that they are seated in the lap of luxury. The setting is positively princely. The sleek 88-foot motor yacht, black and white and futuristic, was custom built in Viareggio, Italy, and would create a gaper`s block in any harbor. Its interior is even more stunning.
Beyond the smoky glass windows of the trilevel home are interiors that boast an incredible attention to detail that rival most hotel suites, let alone cruise-ship staterooms. Each of the generously apportioned five staterooms is outfitted with color television, refrigerator, stereo and a separate head (bathroom). In the master bath is a Jacuzzi. Granite counters are complemented by gold-plated faucets and hardware.
Striking in its simplicity, the black-and-white galley nevertheless is state of the art. It is equipped with microwave, dishwasher, garbage disposal, side-by-side refrigerator, a top-loading refrigerator and a food processor. There`s even an 80-bottle wine cellar.
The main salon, which measures about 18 feet by 29 feet, is furnished in built-in sofas upholstered in a dusty-rose floral print and complemented by gray lacquer built-in cabinets (14 coats of lacquer providing its high-gloss look) and an Austrian crystal cocktail and dining-room table, around which sit gray leather chairs. Grays and cranberry accent colors were picked up in the sculpted rug, and they appear throughout the boat.
Phillips` ”boat disease” began in the 1950s when he purchased an old clunker of a speedboat he called ”The Leaker.” He graduated from 15 to 20, 27, then 42 feet before he designed the boat of his dreams. ”Sometimes I look behind me, and I say: `John, this is not yours.` It`s unbelievable.”
Upgrading often is an unavoidable affliction for boat owners. Such was the case with Seth Atwood, one of the country`s foremost horologists, who founded the Time Museum in Rockford in the early `70s.
Atwood had a boat he didn`t like, and he began tinkering with plans that suggested his ideal. One day about four years ago, he turned to his daughter, Diane, and challenged her to design the ideal boat.
This was no idle talk. Diane Atwood, now 31, is a Harvard- and Princeton- trained architect. She found herself one of the best naval architects around, Tom Fexas, who specializes in high-speed hull designs, and the two teamed up with Mike Kelsey, president of Palmer Johnson, the Sturgeon Bay, Wis., yacht builders.
The result of their combined vision was called Time, an exquisite, 126-foot yacht that has become a prototype and has helped launch Atwood Yachts Inc., 154 W. Hubbard St., a firm that specializes in custom motor yachts and is believed to be unique in this country.
”When you come right down to it,” architect Atwood says, ”utilization of interior space is nowhere more critical than within the confined space of a yacht. Designing a boat really is different from designing a building. There`s tremendous symmetry. And because of the elements and weight considerations, there are constraints on the kind of materials you may use.
”We`d call up furniture manufacturers to find out how much things weigh before we`d put them on the boat. We designed a lot of our furniture. We had little boxes made of Lexan (a kind of Plexiglas) and put fabric beneath it so we could see how it would hold up to light. There are tremendous problems with fading. We had to come up with fabrics that had a special ultraviolet retardant. We wanted to use a lot of naturally dyed silks, but we limited it to throw pillows. We used a synthetic carpet material (to guard against mildew).
”But our biggest contribution was to the architecture of the boat itself. A lot of boats are very cramped, with tiny rooms and cramped stairs. The space is not well planned out. We tried to make this more residential in feeling, with very wide stairs. The sinks in the heads are large, rather than those typical tiny boat fixtures. In the main galley is everything a cook could want, including built-ins to store everything from dinnerware to silverware. There are pullout wire bins fitted to handle all the foodstuffs.” Although some luxury materials (such as Carrara marble, leather and bird`s-eye maple) were incorporated into the design, and some antiques (such as a Chinese buffet, used as a bar in the saloon) accessorize the layouts, Atwood says the design was more geared to use.
”We even have a spot on deck that some call a patio. It`s a floating swimming hole, and it really feels like a back yard.”
Owner Seth Atwood wouldn`t change a thing.
”It`s perfect,” he says.
