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Interior designer Shelley
DiCondina didn’t know what to say when she met the owners of the
94-foot Sassy.
“I about fainted
when all seven of them walked into the meeting. I asked which ones were
staying,” says DiCondina, owner of Yacht Interiors by Shelley. When
she realized all of the McGuirk family’s adults would have a say
in the first motoryacht they had ever built together, she thought the
process of making simple decisions might turn into committee meetings
from hell. “I told them it should be like the Olympics,” she
recalls with a laugh. “Everybody holds up a card with a number to
vote on the fabrics.”
Much to her relief,
and to the relief of everyone at Hargrave, the McGuirk family turned out
to be heavenly clients. The seven adults and their six children have been
boating together for years aboard smaller powerboats, and they had definite
ideas about what they wanted in their first large-scale, owner-operated
yacht: a top speed around 24 knots with a 22-knot cruise, comfortable
places for everyone to sleep, customized amenities, and plenty of color
inside.
The first three requirements
were nothing new for Hargrave, but the fourth left some folks at the boatbuilding
facility a bit on edge as the builder’s second-ever 94 Capri made
her way down the production line.
“Our average owners
are 60 or older, fairly beige at that point in life, where these are just
wild,” says Mike Joyce, Hargrave’s president and CEO. “When
we first started to put it together, our guy at the factory worried that
we shouldn’t take it to a boat show. He said, ‘This is going
to scare people.’ When it all went together, he loved it. At the
boat show, we got a lot of wows. If you like this boat, you really like
it.”
DiCondina says Sassy
was one of the most challenging interior design jobs she’s had since
entering the business in 1986. The Michigan-based family was pleasant
to work with, she says, but few clients ask for bright blues, reds, and
yellows—especially clients who plan to offer their yacht for charter,
as Sassy’s do this fall in the Great Lakes and Thousand Islands.
(See “Hargrave Charter Fleet,” this
story.) “They wanted a primary color, sculpted inlay rug,” she
recalls. “I thought, ‘Are you kidding? We used to do that in
the ’70s.’”
In the end, she and
Hargrave’s team were able not only to accommodate the McGuirks’
wishes for a bold palette and other custom touches, but to do so in a
way that should help the $4.25-million yacht retain her long-term value.
For example, the accommodations
spaces are traditionally styled with a neutral decor, while on the main
deck, the sculpted-inlay rug graces the main saloon as requested. Suede
chairs, sofas, and pillows are all designed to match. Yet all the vibrant
color on this deck can be easily replaced should the McGuirks ever decide
to sell the yacht. “You could take out all of that color for the
next owner,” DiCondina says. “The sky lounge would be the only
problem.”
Indeed, up the floating
staircase is one of the most personalized spaces aboard Sassy:
a combined pilothouse-sky lounge done almost entirely in royal and marine
blues. DiCondina says the goal was to create a disco, but the owner-operators
had practical applications in mind as well.
Next
page > Part
2: “It’s everything they dreamed it would be and more.” > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
6
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