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"View Slideshow\n\nRedesigning any interior bristles with problems, especially when you decide not to rip the entire d\u00E9cor out and start from scratch. But when the interior extends over several decks of a large, sophisticated motor yacht, the problems can only proliferate. What works on land, after all, could well turn out to be a disaster on the high seas. Won't most woods warp and wovens wilt in the salty air? Surely metal corrodes and colors fade almost overnight. Worse, don't certain design features that seem normal on terra firma\u2014prominent knobs and sharp-edged tables\u2014turn into Hitchcock-like agents of doom once a boat slips its moorings for the stormy ocean?\n\nNo, not really, says London-based designer Jonathan Reed. Many of the difficulties, he suggests, come from imagining that what we need on a boat is intrinsically different from what we need as we amble about our city apartment or country house. \"There's a kind of myth that you can't use this material or that fabric at sea,\" says Reed. \"But when you're talking about a big, completely modern yacht with all the basic comforts, there's really very little you can't do. I think the essential thing is to keep in mind what you know about your client's way of life, whether you're designing a space in the middle of a city or on the ocean.\"\n\n\"There's a nod to design, but no more than that. After all, people want to be at ease.\"\n\nReed, with the help of his associates Fiona Jacobs and Matthew Daines, and naval architect Richard Sarre and staff from Dubois Naval Architects, has certainly brought this practical approach, coupled with an exquisite sense of materials, to his radical transformation of Il Cigno (The Swan), a 148-foot yacht built in Italy in 1983. The present owners acquired the boat in 1999 because they liked its overall size and feel\u2014 though not the d\u00E9cor\u2014but once they had sailed on it a few times, they realized it would need a fundamental transformation. Having spent some time with Reed both on the boat and at his office in London, the owners asked him to come up with an overall plan for the yacht. Once they had approved the plan, they gave Reed carte blanche.\n\n\"They were wonderful,\" says Reed. \"They followed every stage of the work with interest but were relaxed and confident enough just to let me get on with the job. But the original interiors were quite frightening. One of them was in what you might call the English pub style, while another had the Oriental boudoir look. It was incredibly kitschy, and it had to go,\" he explains. \"Even so, we resisted the temptation to get rid of everything. When I saw what it would cost to replace the sycamore paneling, for instance, I thought to myself, OK, we can live with the sycamore. We'll find ways of blending it in. In the same way, we chose to retain some of the original furniture, such as the banquettes. Once they'd been stripped down and recovered, they settled into the new scheme of things very nicely.\"\n\nReed focused his creative energies on the master suite and the main saloon, which he considered to be the heart of the boat, and it was there that he gave fullest rein to his love of natural materials. By revarnishing the paneling, then replacing its gold metal banding with lengths of specially treated leather, he immediately set a different tone, which he underlined with a liberal use of oiled teak for the furnishings. The result proved perfectly in accord with the boat's permanent background of sea and sky. In their finished state, the main quarters feel extremely comfortable. Reed has achieved this by paying attention to a variety of small details, such as the fused linen draperies in the saloon, which cut out the sun's glare but not its luminosity, and the luxurious expanse of marble in the baths (one might think marble too heavy for a boat, but it turns out that yachts require lots of ballast).\n\nPracticality and comfort provide the keynote throughout, from the media room to the exterior decks, which are well equipped for sunbathing as well as for alfresco dining. \"Part of comfort on a big boat is being able to lie around, oblivious of the staff,\" Reed says. \"That's the kind of life I envisaged for this yacht.\"\n\n\"There's a myth that you can't use this material or that fabric at sea. But there's little you can't do.\"\n\nOne significant alteration that the designer brought to Il Cigno was a new stairway linking all the decks. \"Before, you had to dodge and weave to find your way from one level to another,\" he explains. \"So I tried to make it simple and have things like ice makers on every level so that guests wouldn't have to keep trailing up and down for the smallest necessities.\"\n\nPerhaps the biggest transformation that Jonathan Reed has wrought is the absence of d\u00E9cor as such. \"I think there's a nod to design, but no more than that,\" he notes. \"After all, the people who use this boat want above all to be at ease. So I wasn't going to give them something white and minimalist, but rather an environment that would be easy to enjoy. I also think there's a growing awareness that people's needs at sea are not so very different from their needs elsewhere. Little by little, design on yachts will catch up with the vast range of design possibilities you can find on land.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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