| "Some people say I’m crazy and others tell me I am a visionary and my concept makes a lot of sense," said David Lester, the Bonita Springs, Florida, art fair organizer. In 2001, Lester sold his string of art and antiques fairs including the Palm Beach Fair (now called Palm Beach: America’s International Fine Art and Antiques Fair) to DMG Media, the London-based exhibition and publishing company, for $18 million. |  |
SeaFair, the Art Ark – Lita Solis-Cohen
"Some people say I’m crazy and others tell me I am a visionary and my concept makes a lot of sense," said David Lester, the Bonita Springs, Florida, art fair organizer. In 2001, Lester sold his string of art and antiques fairs including the Palm Beach Fair (now called Palm Beach: America’s International Fine Art and Antiques Fair) to DMG Media, the London-based exhibition and publishing company, for $18 million. After spending 15 months cruising aboard his own yacht with his wife, Lee Ann, he came up with the idea for SeaFair. An art yacht to go from Miami, Florida and Newport, Rhode Island bringing art, antiques and jewelry to America’s wealthiest.
"Most millionaires live near the water and they don’t like going to drafty armories and overheated hotel ballrooms to buy art and antiques," says Lester. "We will bring Bond Street and Madison Avenue to their local marinas. And when the art yacht is in port it cannot be ignored. It will be the height of a five story building, rising 557-feet above the waterline. When lit up at night it will be spectacular!"
The Lesters call their $20 million, 228-foot exposition mega yacht Grand Luxe. Designed by Miami-based Luis de Basto, in conjunction with marine architects DeJong and Lebet of Jacksonville, construction began at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders in Freeland, Washington, in August 2005. Lester and the staff at his company, Expoships LLP, have spent the last 18 months studying the demography and buying habits of mega-millionaires and signing up art, antiques dealers and jewelers to exhibit at SeaFair.
In their promotional literature and on their website (www.expoships.com) they list 70 well-known and not so well-known dealers from the US and abroad who have agreed to exhibit their Picassos and porcelains, brooches and breakfronts on the new floating facility. Among them are furniture dealer Alan Rubin of Pelham Galleries in London, Spanierman, the New York American painting dealer, Georg Jensen specialist Michael James of the Silver Fund, Galleries Thomas, 20th Century art dealers in Munich and David Morris and the London jeweler. The list, largely European dealers who want a presence in America, goes on and on.
So far Lester has made arrangements with most of the marinas in 34 towns and cities targeted for the 11 month maiden voyage. Assuming all goes according to schedule, Grand Luxe will launch in St. Petersburg, Florida, on January 3, 2007, with a gala benefit for the St. Petersburg Art Museum. It will spend the next three months making five day stops at marinas on the Florida coast, before heading north as the weather gets warmer. Expect to see the Grand Luxe in Greenwich, Connecticut June 6-10, 2007 and in Newport, Rhode Island on the Fourth of July. It will stop twice at the Hamptons (Sag Harbor) and twice at Nantucket. For four weeks in the Fall it will go from Boston to New York. It will be in Philadelphia, October 17-21 and Norfolk, November 15-18 before heading back to Florida for Art Basel Miami early in December, 2007.
Three exhibition decks will house 28 galleries. A glass enclosed restaurant is planned for deck three, just below the Sky Deck, an open air space for informal dining and dancing. Each port visit will begin with a fund raising party for a local museum. After the St. Petersburg Museum’s inaugural party Lester has plans with museums in Boca Raton, Naples, Tampa, Vero Beach and Jacksonville. The Gibbs Museum in Charleston is on board with an event in April 2007.
Admission to the vessel at each five day stay will be by invitation only. Lester expects sponsoring financial institutions to entertain clients at breakfast, lunch or dinner at one of the two restaurants on board and these high wealth individuals will be encouraged to stay on and shop at the 28 galleries. Dealers will invite their customers and institutions will invite their patrons.
"People are complaining about the inconvenience of travel and simply do not go to antiques shows because of the bother of getting there so we will bring the finest art and antiques to them," says Lester. "The shallow draft construction of the yacht will enable it visit yacht facilities in the center of town rather than commercial port facilities in industrial areas. We want to make buying art and antiques easy and fun."
Lester says the mix of dealers will change from port to port. If the ship brings modern and contemporary art on the first visit, it will return with earlier art, antiques and jewelry on the second. Dealers sign up for two to four week segments. Lester claims the cost to dealers will be less than high-end art fairs because of savings on shipping, staffing, installation and dismantling. He has arranged for dealers to restock from a mobile facility on land. Another truck will make weekly runs to New York to replenish or change inventories.
Gallery rents will range from $10,000 a week for 200 square-feet to $30,000 for 600 square-feet not including staff, travel and shipping. SeaFair assumes advertising costs, marketing costs, catalogues and invitations. "One shipment, one installation, one inventory and one staff serving multiple markets," is David Lester’s pitch.
Lester is so sure his art yacht will be successful he has invested his own money and convinced Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation, the financing arm of Caterpillar Inc, to be the major lender. Michael Hoberman, an attorney and Robert Green, who runs a technical staffing company are also investors and they are on Expoships’ Management Committee.
The Lesters’ plans for the Grand Luxe call for an investment of $60 million over the first five years and the Grand Luxe is not the only expoship on the drawing boards. There are plans for a second art ark to travel from Houston, Texas via the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans and up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers as far as Pittsburgh. "It can reach the major cities on the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway and we can get to Montreal and Toronto as well," says Lester.
There’s more; "The Fashion Boat will be for top couturiers and jewelers and another expoship will feature the best of Italian design including home furnishings, fashion, jewelry, motorcycles and yachts," Lester promises. "A conference expoship called PharmaSea will serve the pharmaceutical industry and bring doctors to the drug reps instead the current scenario of reps going to the docs." Lester
