10 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES JUNE 14/JUNE 15 2014

House^Home

Simon Woodroffe, founder ofYo! Sushi restaurant chain,chose not to invest in tradi-tional bricks and mortar inEngland. Instead, the entre-

preneur is the proud owner of 10boats, including three houseboats.

Chief among these is The Victory: a2,500 sq ft custom-built floating homemoored near Chelsea’s Cheyne Walkin London. From its deck, Woodroffehas a view down the river Thames.

“I don’t like any of the penthouses –it’s like being in a prison upthere. I want to be on the water,”says Woodroffe.

Many European cities are well usedto the charms of houseboat living: inAmsterdam, for example, there aremore than 2,500 of them on 165 canals.The Residential Boat Owners’ Associ-ation (RBOA) estimated there were upto 50,000 people living on 15,000 house-boats in the UK in 2011; a number itsays is likely to be much larger now.

The charms associated with river-side living are now appealing to amore high-end market. With up-to-the-minute technology and high-qualityinterior design, floating homes can beboth romantic and upmarket. In

A chance tosplash out

Interiors Designers are catering to high­endbuyers seduced by the charms of riversideliving. By Clarissa Sebag­Montefiore

with cooking, heating and lighting?”he asks. “All these things can be over-come but it’s not necessarily as easyas living in a ‘floating apartment’.” Inaddition, boat dwellers usually do nothave security of tenure: rented moor-ings – which are hard to come by,with demand outstripping supply inthe UK – often work on a one-yearrolling contract.

For the super-rich, though, some ofthe practical drawbacks – from moor-ings to heating – are being taken careof at the design stage. At Oyster Pierin Battersea, southwest London, thereare moorings for 10 custom-built resi-dential barges on a site dating to the16th century.

The floating development is the firstof its kind in the UK. Each of thevessels has been transported fromFrance and the Netherlands beforebeing converted in shipyards in Bel-gium and Britain. They are sold asempty shells – giving buyers the free-dom to design the interior exactly asthey want.

Prices range from £995,000 for a 25-metre boat to £1.5m for 40 metres.This includes the boat, renovationand interior design costs, as well as a

Vega IV moored atOyster Pier Savills

Living area of Vega IV, a custom­built residential barge at Oyster Pier in Battersea, southwest London, £1.5m Savills

some cases, star architects are beingenlisted: Zaha Hadid has designed aset of five yachts for the German ship-builder Blohm+Voss. True to Hadid’strademark style, the vessels are evoc-ative of a spaceship, with interiorsdominated by voluptuous white swellsand curves.

Yet top-end floating homes todayoften mimic their stationary counter-parts, with features such as large win-dows, sweeping staircases, underfloorheating and garden decks.

Jesper Dirk Andersen, owner ofDirkmarine, a Danish company thathas custom-designed houseboats andfloating homes for more than 12 years,says that he has seen “growing inter-est” within Europe, particularly in cit-ies such as London, Copenhagen, Ber-lin and Budapest.

Boats usually have low ceilings andsmall portholes; to look out, you haveto stand up. However, in renovated ornew-build houseboats such as TheVictory, which Dirk Andersendesigned from scratch, there are highceilings and enlarged windows. Slid-ing ceiling-to-floor glass doors create aseamless divide between the livingarea and outside deck.

Like a regular house, it is fittedwith comfortable furniture and fur-nishings, but there are also hiddentelevision screens and gold-plated cup-board doors. “Traditionally, peoplehave viewed houseboat [dwellers] astravellers, gypsies, not quite in soci-ety. There are all sorts of connota-tions – people view them as the nextstep from a caravan. That is chang-ing,” says Mike O’Shea, founder ofUK-based Eco Floating Homes.

Alan Wildman, the chairman ofRBOA, points out that boat dwellersoften have to contend with uniquechallenges. These include a full toilettank when you are unable to cruise toa disposal point, frozen water and nofixed gas supply. “How do you cope

The Victory took two years to build:“At one point we rechristened it ‘TheDisaster’,” jokes Woodroffe. It wasworth the pain, though. In keepingwith the chic Asian aesthetic of hisrestaurant chain, the entrepreneurtook inspiration from Japan. Offset-ting the engineered (or layered),smoked-oak floors are gleaming whitewalls, black and white illuminatedceiling panels, and concertina wallsthat can fold or expand to divide thelarge space.

The Victory has oakf loors, concertinawalls, hidden televisionscreens and gold­platedcupboard doors

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FINANCIAL TIMES JUNE 14/JUNE 15 2014 ★ 11

use of furniture from Ikea and theInterior Addict designer store.

Still, cosiness has not been sacri-ficed. Portholes in the three lowerbedrooms provide a cabin-like feel. Inthe living room, chopped wood feeds abulbous black woodburner, the Bathy-scafocus by Focus (first launched in1978), which is suspended from theceiling and can be pivoted to pointtowards any direction in the room.

Sunderland confesses that the boat“is not good for an art collector”because of limited wall space. Artaside, Oyster Pier’s appeal is thatits barges are bespoke. If a buyerwants to build a recording studio inthe hull, or create an entire wall ofwindows, they can.

Like The Victory, Dirkmarinealso designed the houseboat Copenha-gen. The 200 sq metre family home,which sits in the heart of Denmark’scapital, has a contemporary Scandina-vian feel.

Outside, crisp white deckchairsand an elegant white canopy siton the wraparound deck. Inside,peach pine floors set off an elegantwhite staircase and kitchen fittings,which are handmade by the Danish

lighting and underfloor heating are allcontrolled centrally via an iPad.

Boats are associated with crampedliving quarters. Yet the Vega IV hasan airy, open-plan kitchen-cum-diningroom flooded with light. French win-dows lead to a large deck.

Sunderland was at pains to avoid aninterior that was too clichéd (thinknautical blue and white stripes) oroverly ostentatious.

The Mid-Century modern decor ref-erences the era of the barge’s birth,

rare long lease of the mooring until2130 (the boats are stamp duty-free).Buyers can touch down by helicopterat the London Heliport, ride the ferryinto the city for work, or use theirtransatlantic seafaring home to popacross the channel.

The Vega IV is a handsome,traditional Dutch barge paintedwhite, black, and red that sits impos-ingly on the water. The former coalbarge started its new life as littlemore than a “big rust bucket”, accord-ing to Jane Sunderland, the interiordesigner behind its transformationinto a high-end home.

To convert the 1950s barge, theengine was overhauled and theinterior stripped down and rebuiltwith raised ceilings (the kitchenalone measures 2.75 metres high),allowing for two floors.

Traditional building techniqueshave maintained the boat’s charm: TSRigging, which helped restore theiconic British clipper Cutty Sark, refit-ted the Vega IV. Ropes were wovenusing methods first employed in thelate 18th century.

Inside, however, traditional stylegives way to modernity. Music,

Terrace on the Copenhagen houseboat DirkmarineAl­fresco dining in Denmark Dirkmarine

company Simonsen & Czechura inwalnut with a white high gloss.

The dazzling, uncluttered interioralso features a handful of carefullyselected pieces of furniture, which adda bit of colour, including green chairsby Danish designer Gubi set aroundan Italian Porro table.

Quality is paramount: the bathroom(including the bathtubs, sinks and toi-lets) has been designed by the Italianbrand Ceramica Flaminia, whilethe floor is created from handmadeterrazzo by Odorico Studio. Lamps inthe house are from Copenhagen-basedMøller & Rothe.

In Dirkmarine’s new London showhome, Quality Living, the latest gadg-ets include: iPad and iPhone-control-led heating, cooling, lighting, musicand alarm systems, as well as under-floor heating sourced from sea orriver water. Dornbracht rainshowersare included in the bathrooms.

Above all, Dirkmarine wants natureto shine in all of its boats. In theCopenhagen vessel, for example, allcorners of the vessel have mahoganyfolding doors, so that, in summer atleast, any section can be opened up tothe elements.

House^Home

Vega IV is fitted with Mid­Century modern decor Savills

with lashings of walnut, including anelegant walnut bar.

In terms of individual furniture,pieces include a round smoothSaarinen tulip table, white Eameslounge chairs, and Barcelona chairs,originally designed by Ludwig Miesvan der Rohe in 1929 for theInternational Exposition in Spain.

“Keeping the lines clean wasimportant and also not making any-thing too fussy to maximise thespace,” says Sunderland, who made

Kitchen on the Copenhagen Dirkmarine

CGI of ZahaHadid’s yacht

Zaha Hadid Architects

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