Millionaires see the world in floating apartment complex ResidenSea: Title Tattle
The cruise ship the World of ResidenSea left Melbourne unnoticed, but no doubt arrives tomorrow in Sydney to a somewhat soggy welcome. Continuously sailing the seas, and docking where the owners’ corporation want: that's life aboard The World, the still-unique floating private community that is permanent home to wealthy residents and their occasional guests.
Owned by those who live on board, The World has visited more than 125 nations and circles the globe every two to three years. The 43,524-tonne ship can travel the world at a maximum 18 knots.
Australians, especially Sydneysiders and Gold Coasters, are almost over-represented among the owners, which might explain the frequency of the trips Down Under.
The 165 lavish apartments consist of 106 two- and three-bedrooms units, there are 18 one- and two-bedroom homes, and then there are 39 studios.
There are six apartments currently available for resale including the priciest - a combined 388-square-metre 11th-floor offering at $10 million through Savills.
The facilities include two pools, a tennis court, virtual golf, gym, library, chapel, deli and even House of Graff jewellers.
It’s a 12-deck, 196-metre vessel that first set sail in 2002, and officially sold out four years later. The initial sales were at around the $42,000 a square metre mark.
"OUR EXECUTIVE CHEF GOT SOME LOBSTERS STRAIGHT OFF THE BOAT TODAY, CAN I TEMPT YOU TO TRY ONE?”
Title Tattle was aboard The World of ResidenSea, the first time it sailed into Sydney Harbour in 2003, bunked down in a 30-square-metre studio apartment among the then $850 a night paying guests on the lowest deck. But familiar faces among the owners upstairs were soon apparent. The language translation business entrepreneurs Nicola Chapman and Andrew McLeay – who played the doctor in the murder mystery night during the cruise – ranked among the Australian couples who were owners on The World. The late Sydney stockbroker Michael Toltz was another on-board owner. As where Bill and Imelda Roche, the developers of the Hunter Valley gardens estate. Developed between 1998 and 2003 and spanning 25 hectares, the site is one of Australia's largest privately owned gardens which comes with cellar door with wines named after Bill and Imelda. The Roches are presumably still enjoying their eight-floor apartment on The World, although Title Tattle was quite surprised to see them counted as crew in the ship’s manifest when it left Port Melbourne last week bound for Hobart and then Sydney.
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The Scottish-born Levin Wine founder David Levin, and his Australian wife, Lynne, were aboard when it left Melbourne. David Levin, owner of The Capital Hotel in London, started growing his own grapes in the Loire Valley, France in 1985 to produce his own private label wines for his luxury hotels and restaurants. The Levins were great mates of the late Len Evans and during their numerous trips to Australia they were introduced to many advances in viticulture that they've now adopted at their Loire vineyard.
As its many cloistered owners don't wish to be named as owners, ascertaining continued ownership is a little tricky, but acquistions by Australians have continued with Richard Penn, the one-time Gutbuster entrepreneur, and his wife, Heather, now among the reputed owners.
From NSW's Southern Highlands, Ken and Susan Cooper, who own the Sutton Forest, Rotherwood estate are among the owners too.
Title Tattle recalls, that boarding in Sydney back in 2003, was the engineer Bob Sparke from Belvedere estate at Burradoo in the NSW Southern Highlands. Title Tattle recollects Sparke's acquaintanceship with mining tycoon Gina Rinehart had blossomed and they were then regularly following the sunsets from a ninth-floor apartment. Gina, who of course can’t help working, had Queensland government ministers aboard at a 2010 private dinner which triggered some parliamentary controversy.
Built at a cost of $US262 million, The World was conceived in 1997 by Norwegian shipping magnate Knut Kloster jnr, whose father started the Norwegian Caribbean Line in 1966. The idea was to establish an exclusive floating resort whose residents would circumnavigate the world, visiting desirable destinations and attending global events. Initially boasting a one-to-one guest/staff ratio, the ship's exclusivity stemmed from the original requirement that owners have a $5 million-plus net worth. So the World is viewed by some as Noah's Ark for the filthy rich.
Plenty of Americans were the early buyers including Jim Blair, a retired Silicon Valley property developer, and William Scott, a retired New York adman. The Colorado-based health-club industry entrepreneur Richard Reed headed the residents' committee after paying $US21,000 per square metre for his 126-square-metre apartment. Any buyers of the 50-year-long leaseholds must prove a net worth of $US5 million and have no criminal record.
Back in 2003 its wealthy apartment owners were beginning to mutiny. Motivational speaker John Demartini and his late wife, Australian astrologer Athena Starwoman, had outlaid $3 million on their glamorous cabin and expected nothing less than luxury while following the sunset in the ocean-going luxury ship. It was a one-bedroom apartment into which they moved after selling their Trump Tower apartment, unnerved after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
But after setting sail from Oslo in 2002, The World was overrun by rowdy short-stay tourists invited aboard by the ship's financially challenged operator to help fill the many unsold apartments.
"You would get to some ports, and there were three or 400 people who would come on board," complained Demartini. "You're sitting there and they're all tramping through your house."
Apparently the last straw for the owners aboard was when 20 top-selling Ford Australia dealers dressed in their company-logo T-shirts partied aboard during its 2003 Sydney docking.
Things have changed and the $1,000-plus a night six-day minimum stay has cleared the riff raff from the ship. Although Title Tattle did notice last year Demartini was offering one of his motivational lecture attendees the chance to also spend an extraordinary day with him and a small, elite group of other pioneering leaders at his luxury residence on The World.
After Sydney it’s cruising Milford, Doubtful and Dusky sounds in New Zealand. Bon voyage!
