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Art for Sail
By Brook Mason
Published: September 29 2007 03:00 | Last updated: September 29 2007 03:00
Art fairs come in many guises, from white tents to scrappy Armories, but the latest is Grand Luxe, a $30m yacht.
Launched last week, the six-storey ship will play host to 28 gilt-edged galleries including John Mitchell of London, Pelham of Paris and Mallett Antiques of both London and Manhattan. The yacht will sail up and down the length of the east coast of the US until August next year, mooring at moneyed ports including Greenwich, Connecticut, headquarters to more than 100 hedge funds.
The venture is the brainchild of Floridian David Lester, the man who turned Palm Beach into a mandatory stop on the collecting circuit 17 years ago.
“Grand Luxe is not merely art on a boat per se but rather the ultimate mobile luxury shopping club,” claims Lester, who has created an exclusive admissions policy.
With the help of $3m of marketing research, he has been able to determine the liquidity of homeowners in his demographic range. Only the extremely deep-pocketed are to be invited on board.
These include museums such as the Bruce Museum, Nassau County Museum of Art and the Miami Bass Museum of Art, charities such as the Naomi Berry Diabetes Center at Columbia University and Gilda’s Club Worldwide, as well as Smith Barney financial services. All have signed up to hold events on board for their high-net-worth members and clientele.
The ship’s fancy trimmings include a caviar and champagne bar, a restaurant with a well-stocked wine cellar and interiors that mirror those of a luxury Manhattan condominium, featuring a marble lobby and baths and Brazilian mahogany paneling throughout.
British dealer Michael Cohen, a porcelain specialist, heads the Surrey-based Cohen & Cohen and was one of the first dealers to sign up to the concept of a floating fair. He is shipping $5m worth of fragile Chinese export porcelain, including Imari soldier vases and famille rose garnitures, to the boat.
“What matters today is taking art to the buyer rather than waiting for the buyer to come to the art as our clients are either too busy or unwilling to travel,” says Cohen.
Cohen had found waiting for clients at his London premises to be unproductive and closed his premises in London’s Kensington Church Street in the spring - the sixth dealer to do so on that road. London silver specialist Anthony Marks also recently closed his shop, as did the Brussels dealer Philippe Denys, a specialist in 20th-century design.
How seaworthy is Lester’s new gambit? “Half of the world’s wealth is in the US and a hefty portion is right on our own east coast,” says Lester.