Malcolm Forbes’s Historic Yacht Is Reimagined

This article originally appeared in the July 2014 issue of Architectural Digest.

Golf may be the sport of choice for many businessmen, but Manhattan investment banker Roberto de Guardiola prefers open seas to fairways. It’s a passion that was kindled during his childhood in 1950s Cuba, where he frequently spent weekends at a Havana yacht club. "I remember being all of 11 years old when the commodore took a group of us boys on an overnight sailing trip," he recounts. "We all acted very brave—but none of us was really that brave."

Today the president of De Guardiola Advisors and his wife, interior designer Joanne de Guardiola, spend about ten weeks each year sailing to far-flung spots. And this spring marked the couple’s maiden voyage captaining one of the past half-century’s most celebrated yachts, magazine publisher Malcolm S. Forbes’s The Highlander, which they purchased in 2012 from Forbes’s heirs (the patriarch died in 1990). Technically the fifth Highlander —Forbes owned a series of boats with the same name— it was famously kitted out with padded-leather ceilings, Chippendale antiques, and paintings by Raoul Dufy and Thomas Gainsborough, prompting one newspaper to describe it as "a kind of monument to enlightened greed." On the boat, superstars—including Elizabeth Taylor, a close Forbes friend—preened and corporate titans and world leaders held court, munching on Ritz crackers topped with Beluga caviar after being welcomed aboard by a bagpiper. The top deck boasted a helipad, which occasionally came in handy for fetching guests, such as the time when Forbes dispatched his shiny gold helicopter to pick up a notable young couple who had missed the departure for a floating Fourth of July fiesta in New York Harbor.

Extravagances aside, Highlander is a true masterwork of boat design. Completed in 1985, it was devised by the late Jon Bannenberg, a dashing Australian responsible for a fleet of sublimely sculpted, startlingly innovative vessels, ranging from Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi’s Nabila to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s Rising Sun. "Owning a Bannenberg is like owning a house by Mies van der Rohe—it’s too much to resist," Joanne says. Yet even perfection can require some fine-tuning.

The couple undertook an 18-month gut renovation that, among other things, lengthened the hull to 162 feet 3 inches (adding just over 12 feet), while the boat’s name was shortened (no more "the"). Though the former intervention may strike Bannenberg buffs as heresy, Joanne explains that "Highlander didn’t really suit a family’s needs—it was built for corporate entertaining." But the mother of two and stepmother of two more is quick to add, "Everything I did had to be seamless with Bannenberg’s work, which is what attracted me to the boat in the first place."

Back in Forbes’s day, if guests wanted to swim, they had to jump over the side, but the new stern makes the water much more accessible. Steps now stretch across *Highlander’*s hindquarters like stadium seating—"They also invite you into the boat if you’re arriving by tender," Joanne says—and adjacent to them is a ten-by-five-foot hydraulic platform. "It’s the hottest toy in the world," the designer says of the feature, known as a transformer. "You can raise it for diving or just sit on it and watch the sunset."

Making Highlander friendlier also meant loosening up the formal layout. The main deck is now more open, all the better to admire the yacht’s architecture. Amidships, and spanning the boat’s full width, is the main salon. This living area is bordered on the bow by the master cabin, a cream-color haven that occupies the onetime observation salon; toward the stern are an open staircase and a media room. Six cabins for guests and five more for the crew are on the deck below, separated by the engine room.