Vertical Luxury
Round, square, with unusual shapes or made to measure for one-off projects. There are no limits to the creativity of ICM Lift Marine and Bertazzoni Lift Marine products. Their lifts are works of art, reliable and rich in design
by Samuela Urbini - ph. courtesy by Bertazzoni/ICM Lift Marine
There are no limits to the types of lift produced by ICM Lift Marine and Bertazzoni Lift Marine, two centres of Italian excellence that also operate in land-based architecture.
The companies’ marine divisions specialise in the creation (ICM) and installation (Bertazzoni) of lifts and dumb waiters for yachts. By combining their forces they have created a company that provides extremely high quality services. Round, square, with unusual shapes or made to measure for one-off projects, their lifts are works of elegance and skill, where the importance of design is never forgotten. They often become aesthetically striking in characterful megayachts. Sometimes, though, they are designed to adapt to limited spaces – as
CEO of Bertazzoni Lift Marine, Gianluca Bertazzoni (left in the picture opposite page).
The company specialises in the installation of lifts engineered and built by ICM Lift Marine, whose CEO is Massimo Bezzi. The two companies have collaborated for many years and are Italian centres of excellence specialising in the creation of lifts and dumb waiters for large yachts (in the pictures, some examples).. Above, how a staircase (top) is transformed with a bespoke lift in the centre (below)
part of a refit, for example, in a yacht that originally had no lifts. “As I walk along the jetties at the Monaco Yacht Show it’s very rewarding to see so many yachts that chosen our lifts”, says Gianluca Bertazzoni, CEO of Bertazzoni Lift Marine. “I counted at least ten, built by yards like Baglietto, Benetti, ISA Palumbo, Rossinavi, Sanlorenzo and The Italian Sea Group. It’s a great source of pride for us”.
One of the reasons that large yards turn to these two companies is versatility. Take, for example, the project for the NCA 596 by The Italian Sea Group. “Its special feature is the use of laminated glass with an opaque mesh between the layers, a solution already created for Tecnomar’s Kensho yacht, but this time it was also required for the doors, which required special certification”, says Massimo Bezzi, CEO of ICM Lift Marine. “After extensive research we identified a supplier who eventually enabled us to gain the approval we needed to fulfil the client’s request for doors with the correct certification”.
Prototype products, then, or requests for products that
are otherwise impossible, like installing a lift for the refit of the megayacht Ice by Lürssen. Launched in 2005 with a mushroom-shaped stairwell rather than a lift, the northern yards we contacted at first couldn’t meet the specifications, while a Genoa-based company found the solution with the help of Bertazzoni Lift Marine and ICM Lift Marine. “We came up with the idea of a steel-clad metal structure with a round back section. The doors were integrated into the “stalk” of the mushroom, the straight part of the stairwell. It took around eighteen months to complete, from design to production, but in the end the impossible became possible”, says Bezzi. The versatility shown by these companies is matched only by their reliability. Ten years ago ICM and Bertazzoni founded Vertec Marine, which manages assistance, maintenance and repairs across the world through its subsidiaries Vertec Italia and Vertec America, based in Fort Lauderdale. “Most of our clients specify annual maintenance, so their installations retain their efficiency for longer”, says Bertazzoni. www.icmliftmarine.com www.bertazzoniascensori.com