8 minute read
COME SAIL AWAY
Two Palm Beach newcomers host a charitable dinner party aboard their yacht and share their passion for the water with guests
BY MICHELE MEYER PHOTOGRAPHY BY JERRY RABINOWITZ
Marsha Serlin and Jerry Sloan await the arrival of their Ultimate Dinner Party guests on board their yacht, the MTL. B“
arefoot is best,” the invite for Marsha Serlin and Jerry Sloan’s Ultimate Dinner Party suggested. Yet shod or not, nothing was ordinary for the couple’s elegant evening to support Children’s Home Society of Florida (CHS) aboard MTL, their 112-foot, tri-deck Ocean Alexander 34R. Their gathering was one of many taking place that night, with funds benefiting the organization’s mission to help keep families safe, strong, and together. Serlin—who serves as CEO of United Scrap Metal, a top industrial recycling company she launched in 1978 with $200 and a rental truck—says the “barefoot is best” prompt was born out of practicality and safety. “We didn’t want anyone falling down, and they all listened,” she says. “The women wore beautiful dresses, but no shoes. We had so much fun.” Indeed, Serlin, Sloan, and their 10 guests—none of whom they’d met before—were laughing so hard by dinner’s end that they remained in the yacht’s dining room despite musical lures of the band Euphoria performing covers from Van Halen to Frank Sinatra on the upper deck, where dessert finally was served. Chef James King, a frequent Ultimate Dinner Party culinary participant and the former chef at Eastpointe Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens and
Delray Sands Resort in Highland Beach, crafted the four-course meal. King began with a mixed seafood ceviche and progressed to calabaza squash gnocchi, followed by Texas Wagyu and Caribbean lobster. The meal concluded with a trio of desserts.
The three-hour affair would’ve lasted even longer if rough waves hadn’t doused the hosts’ plan to take the yacht on a short cruise. But the evening’s quickly forged friendships have endured. “I cannot wait until the next time we have dinner together,” Serlin says. “They were all adventurous and willing to do something different.”
So were Serlin and Sloan, for whom this was their first “fancy schmancy” affair hosted on their five-year-old yacht, MTL, which Serlin named for the lucrative business that enabled her to buy it. “We’re down-to-earth and no fuss,” Serlin notes. “We’d never had waiters in tuxedos on the boat before.”
Their leap began with an invite from Jim and Gaye Engel, longtime friends and honorary chairs for the Ultimate Dinner Party. Over dinner at the Chicago luxury high-rise where they both live, the Engels made a case for Serlin and Sloan to get involved with CHS and this beloved event. “Jimmy knew how to twist my arm,” Serlin says of his pitch for the charity.
The Engels also knew of Serlin’s largesse for other child-related causes, including the Ronald McDonald House Charities, After School Matters, and the Children at the Crossroads Foundation. She also gives to the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the United Way/
Inset: The tablescape featured red rose centerpieces from Love’s Flower Shop, porcelain pagoda napkin holders, and origami napkin arrangements.
—Marsha Serlin
Inset: Mixed seafood ceviche Opposite page, from top: The place setting; Chad Hoeft, Trish Donnelley, and Dave Ober.
Community Chest. Since that night, Serlin has donated generously to Children’s Home Society of Florida, too.
“We help families in crisis before they’re forced to relinquish their children to foster care,” says Loren Young, CHS’s special events manager.
Among the charity’s biggest fundraisers, the annual Ultimate Dinner Party has raised more than $4.5 million over the past 29 years. For the 2021 event, nine homes, including MTL, were matched with top-tier chefs from local country clubs and restaurants. All of the guests started at one private residence for pre-dinner cocktails before splintering off into their smaller groups.
Serlin and Sloan moved to Palm Beach two years ago, drawn by its beautiful surroundings, fine eateries, and “very giving people.” The couple still have two smaller yachts—Thumbs Up and Two Thumbs Up—that are docked in Chicago for cruising the Great Lakes. MTL is their only home in Florida, and the charity’s first yacht in many years was a hot ticket, Young says.
“People are amazed we have a dining room that seats 10,” Serlin says of the five-bedroom, 10-bath “boat” where they live seven to eight months out of the year. “It’s like having a luxurious apartment on the water. The only difference is that it moves, so if you don’t like your neighbors, you just leave.”
While Serlin credits “a lot of wine and a dry sense of humor” as secrets to an event’s success, she and Sloan proved to be consummate hosts. Their oval dining table was conducive to conversation and featured centerpieces of 8-inch-high red roses from Love’s Flower Shop of West Palm Beach. “I love color but also wanted people to see the person across from them,” Serlin says. Porcelain pagoda napkin holders were used as ornamentation on each plate, and the ship’s “detailoriented” chief steward created the origami napkin arrangements.
Overall, Serlin says, “the atmosphere was relaxed—though nobody
From top: Chef James King’s Texas Wagyu and Caribbean lobster; Dave Ober, Trish Donnelley, and Chad Hoeft. Opposite page: The evening’s festivities—all to benefit Children’s Home Society of Florida—ended with live entertainment on the upper deck, Champagne, and a trio of desserts.
jumped into the Jacuzzi with their clothes on.”
Boats have long been a shared love for Serlin and Sloan, who met through Serlin’s sister and brother-in-law (a boyhood pal of Sloan’s) in Chicago in 1993. “One of the first things I asked was, ‘How big is your boat?’” Serlin recalls. When she learned it was only 22 feet, she informed him that wouldn’t do. “I’m a water baby, and if he wasn’t, we couldn’t be together.”
Sloan pointed to a boat at a bridge and said, “Will that be big enough?” Serlin replied that yes, that would work.
“A beautiful blonde, you can’t mess that up,” says Sloan, a retired motor fuel distributor. “But as we got to know each other, we learned of our mutual interests. I was a water baby when she told me I was.” Beyond his willingness to dive into a floating lifestyle, “a man who keeps you laughing is awesome,” Serlin says of Sloan. “He’s also smart, has good instincts, and feels at home in the engine room. He fills in my blanks and I do the same for him.”
Like Sloan, Serlin is a Chicago native. She grew up the daughter of a men’s neckwear manufacturer and only discovered boating
while dating post-divorce in the late 1970s. “I love the water,” she says. “No matter how hard I worked, from Saturday afternoon till Sunday night I’d be on vacation, just a half hour from the office. The water is so peaceful and serene, and if the boat rocks it puts you to sleep.”
Now the couple lives on water almost year-round. She says they love not only traveling but never having to unpack. “We’ll wake up the next day at the most beautiful island in the Bahamas. It’s magical.”
Work is still a priority for Serlin, who takes Zoom calls and more from her floating office, reporting everywhere from Maine to the Bahamas, Chicago to Canada. “I never see myself not working,” she says. “I created the company, so it’s my baby, and I can’t ever abandon it.”
A natural leader, Serlin graduated high school at 15 and went on to serve as president of many college groups and sororities. “I was someone you could count on,” she says. Yet later, as a newly single mother of two, she juggled three jobs, couldn’t always pay her bills, and had her car repossessed and her house foreclosed. “Life wasn’t good, but those times make you stronger. You take care of yourself no matter what—a gift I got without knowing it.”
Serlin remade herself via recycling after finding she could support her young children by gathering scrap from alleys and manufacturers. “I just fell into the scrap metal business and built my wealth by knocking on doors,” she says.
Her philanthropy stems from that drive. “I had a hard start to my career, so I want to help others with similar challenges.”
F o l l o w i n g a s u c c e s s f u l fi r s t g o , S e r l i n a n d S l o a n w o u l d b e o p e n t o h o s t i n g a n o t h e r U l t i m a t e D i n n e r P a r t y i n t h e f u t u r e . B u t t h e r e a r e o t h e r b e n e fi t s , t o o . T h e i r d i n n e r a b o a r d t h e M T L “ n o t o n l y m a d e p e o p l e i n t o b o a t e r s , b u t n o w t h e y w a n t t o g o o n t r i p s w i t h u s , ” s a y s S e r l i n .
The Palm Beach newcomers are fitting right in. After all, as Serlin notes, “the only difference between boaters and non-boaters is we wear different shoes.”
Or, perhaps, none at all. «
