Family Bonding

Jeff Lincoln gives renowned superyacht Octopussy a bold, contemporary redesign with an eye for family fun

WRITTEN BY BARBARA REID PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROLANDO DIAZ

When interior designer Jeff Lincoln and his clients, a young couple from Long Island, frst laid eyes on M/Y Octopussy at the Palm Beach Boat Show, they were immediately taken with its elegant lines and striking blue hull. Recognized as one of the most iconic yachts ever built, the James Bond-inspired 143-foot superyacht was custom built to be one of the world’s fastest and took the yachting scene by storm when launched in 1988.

“We had gone around the Palm Beach Boat Show some years ago and seen much more expensive boats, but none of them excited the imagination,” Lincoln says. “But when we saw Octopussy, it really had style and great dock appeal.”

With spacious accommodations for 12 guests in fve staterooms and crew quarters for seven, the yacht has a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles and a shallow 5-foot draft, making it the ideal vessel for Lyford Cay in the Bahamas, the couple’s favorite spot, and for anchoring out in the many coves around the islands.

Purchasing the yacht, the couple decided on a complete redesign with an eye to making it fun for entertaining friends, yet still practical for their young children. And they knew Jeff Lincoln would be perfect for the job.

A third-generation interior designer, Lincoln had decorated several of the couple’s homes before, and his transformation of their Palm Beach residence had been featured on the cover of House Beautiful in 2017. With an eclectic portfolio of traditional and contemporary designs for clients throughout the United States and abroad, Lincoln is known for bringing a unique perspective and keen eye to all his design projects, creating a cohesiveness and synergy rooted in the history of design.

He attributes his approach to his parents’ infuence growing up. “I am very much inspired by my mom and dad,” he acknowledges. “The saying goes that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and that certainly holds true in my case. My mom was a textile designer and her fabrics were sold to all the big houses like Schumacher and Brunschwig & Fils. My dad (Frank Lincoln) is still working in interior design in Vero Beach at the age of 88. We just have an artistic tradition in our family and I thought I’d carry it on.”

And while his frst career as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal preceded his following in his father’s footsteps, he claims the two professions are not so dissimilar. “There really is a correlation between journalism and interior design,” he maintains. “In journalism, you have to piece together a narrative in some sort of cohesive way. Any good reporter has to ask questions, listen to the answers and then translate. It’s all about communication, dialogue and listening. The best interior design is a com- position and tells a story of the people rather than the story of the designer.”

When it came time to reft Octopussy, Lincoln says that the yacht’s interior dictated the style. “I wanted to give them a happy boat that was contemporary yet still connected to the boat’s storied history, without radically altering the sensibility,” he says. “So many things can inspire. That’s just the nature of the creative process. Your impulse is to embellish and introduce a complexity, but the trick is in disciplining yourself not to indulge in that.

“I like to fnd a narrative of design through the ages because one era inspires and informs another. And since it was a renowned superyacht, I thought it would be interesting to riff on its ’80s heritage. Five years earlier, I might have ripped the entire interior out and started from scratch,” he admits. “But the 1980s have come around again and it started to look fresh to me. So I kind of took that sensibility as a starting point.”

Employing bold geometrics along with Lucite, chromed and polished steel and revived brass to create an eye-catching period-era design with a mid-century modern sensibility, Lincoln continued the 1980s narrative while also incorporating the exterior color scheme throughout.

“A lot of the boats we looked at were inexplicably brown and beige on the inside, not very nautical feeling, and I felt they were like a hotel suite and not really evocative of being on the water,” he says. “(Octopussy) was navy and white on the outside, and because I’m big on consistency, it made sense having the outside relate to the inside. I just felt you really needed to know you are on a boat.”

Entering the main salon — Lincoln’s favorite space, he says — his vision is immediately apparent. “The Greeks were seafaring and the frst explorers,” he says, explain- ing the striking Greek key carpeting that evokes a feeling of alluring energy and motion. Accenting the theme, polished stainless steel and carved African wood accent tables mingle with Vladimir Kagan swivel chairs and undulating sofas whose contours reference the motion of water.

Instead of hiding the supporting structures, Lincoln chose to make them a feature by encasing them in padded and tufted leather. Also upholstered in leather throughout are the overheads, reconfgured for added height, recessed LED lighting and acoustical properties.

And while the scheme is glamorous in its bold use of sculptural profles and luxurious-looking textiles, the space is highly customized for comfort, fexibility and family-friendliness. “Comfort is the No. 1 component frst, foremost and always,” Lincoln emphasizes, noting that this was one of the things his father always stressed. “The curved style makes sense on a boat. Why have sharp corners? Seating depths have to be ample so you can sit on it in multiple ways. Everything is bespoke and custom-made with the intent of maximizing comfort in the space allowed. The geometric fabrics are all Perennials performance fabrics that tend to hide wear and stains. The need for performance materials on a yacht comports well with materials for children,” he notes.

Sharing the main level with the salon is a dining area that opens up 180 degrees for al fresco meals on the aft deck. The table, a dodecagon that seats 12, was completely refurbished. Custom Klismos chairs pick up on the Greek theme in both silhouette and style, and a mirrored overhead light fxture adds a contemporary accent. Noting that the yacht was famous for being a party boat in the ’80s and often docked stern-to, Lincoln installed sheers on the sliding glass doors to ensure privacy for the family when in port.

A breakfast nook adjacent to the galley features a refnished burl wood table, banquette seating and an Andy Warhol original, while forward of the main salon a spiral staircase leads to the wheelhouse and down to the guest staterooms. “The staircase has a balustrade made of Lucite panels that are lit at night,” says the designer. “The feature wall that runs all three decks is all mother of pearl in an alligator pattern wall covering.”

A full-beam master stateroom is forward of the main salon. Here, the bed and skylight take center stage. Upholstered in a Quadrille print with a stylized palm motif, the padded headboard adds comfort and style while an overhead skylight, with its striated wall covering and lighting around the perimeter give the illusion of sky.

An adjoining his-and-her master bath is the original art deco-inspired design. “We could have ripped that bathroom out and spent a lot of money, but I don’t think the improvement would have been better,” says Lincoln candidly. “Deco always makes sense on boats. It harkens back to the great age of the ocean liners, so it’s always appropriate.” And to illustrate his focus on the yacht’s history, he says, “I like the intro of some previous person’s design as part of the mix because it tells the story of the boat. I like that I wouldn’t have designed it like that.” Instead, he instructed that all the hardware be removed and re-plated and had the rare and expensive black, gold and white Carrera marble polished and restored.

Four guest staterooms with both slide-together beds and Pullman berths for maximum fexibility retain their own distinct character while offering uniformity in design. Selecting Quadrille indoor-outdoor ikat prints for each headboard and textured neutral grass cloth as a backdrop, the designer says, “I like to suggest a theme through materials rather than motifs. The ikat prints have an exotic sensibility. I just varied the color combination.”

And while he says that in many ways this was a restoration and updating project, the reft was the most extensive the boat had seen in its 30-year history. By opening up and extending the second deck level, Lincoln designed a completely new sky deck with two al fresco dining tables that join together to accommodate 12, along with comfortable seating, sunbathing pods and a covered sky lounge complete with TV and bar.

“There were technical challenges to adding another deck,” Lincoln admits. “One, to make sure it didn’t look stuck on and that it was integral to the overall design of the boat. The other was that it link up to the other decks in a logical fashion. A lot of time was spent on making sure that it interfaced seamlessly with the new and the old.”

Adding an onboard water feature, a new mast was