This is the story about the time I won a lifetime achievement award at age 48 and didn’t even know it while I was making my “acceptance speech” in the nicest private village on the Gulf of America.
Uhh, where? Where fireworks shoot from the wingtips of stunt planes at night. Where 17 Duesenbergs line up for a lunch trip to a dive bar. Where I once hung out with the Stanley Cup in the salon of an NHL owner’s yacht. And where one guy has a MiG-15 fighter jet as a toy and strafed the private runway at … let’s move on. It’s Ocean Reef Club.
For the uninitiated, Ocean Reef Club is a 2,500-acre private oasis at the northernmost tip of the Florida Keys. ORC is capital-L luxury, with its own aforementioned airport, security, medical and educational facilities along with enough golf carts to move an army of caddies. Speaking of Caddies, the main reason I have been making the pilgrimage to Ocean Reef since 2005 is to attend the fabulous Vintage Weekend every December. Said Vintage Weekend is a charcuterie board of classic cars, vintage airplanes and classic yachts, a combination unlike just about anything in the world. So we got yer Cadillacs. And last year, those 17 resplendent Duesenbergs were there all in a row.
Over the years, my yacht design office has had historically notable yacht refits and newly-built “spirit of tradition” wooden yachts displayed at the Vintage Weekend, their pleased owners graciously setting a course for “The Reef” after Thanksgiving. I’ve given a few presentations at the annual four-day soiree over the years, focusing on cold-molded wooden motoryachts. One year I actually sealed a deal for a new custom sportfish during Saturday night’s blowout rock ‘n’ roll-themed costume party. I did this while sitting outside on the steps in a purple leather Prince getup. Puffy shirt, wig and all. Prince. Get it? Good. The year we had the Hemingway Pilar re-creation (aptly named Legend) and the completely rebuilt 1937 Huckins 48 Avocette on the dock, an old friend joked to me that I was the only living naval architect ever to have two yachts displayed at the Vintage Weekend. Thanks, I think.
The Vintage Weekend fun begins Thursday evening and doesn’t stop until Sunday morning’s awards brunch. Daytime and nighttime airshows. Catered beach parties. Drinks served in the pool. Some of the coolest classic cars in the world on parade. Pull out your violin now because all of this fun is, by Sunday morning, exhausting—particularly for some of the men and women of advancing age who constitute a plurality of the invited attendees. So after that Saturday-night blowout costume party, we all gather for the much-anticipated awards breakfast in Ocean Reef’s Town Hall, triaging booze-soaked skulls with mimosas and bacon.
Back to this award. I was contacted by the adored organizer of The Weekend about ten days before the 2020 event. We’re friends, and she asked me to prepare a 10-minute presentation for that Sunday’s breakfast. With dozens of clients in one room at the same time, this was a good opportunity to show off some of our recent custom yacht projects, classic and contemporary. But she said she couldn’t divulge to me the precise reason for the presentation. Alright. I guess I’ll find out.
Except I didn’t until it was over.
On Sunday morning, the understandably fatigued mistress of ceremonies announced that our Legend and Avocette had both won awards and invited me to the lectern. But she left out the reason why I was being invited to speak. Nevertheless, I jumped up on stage.
What I didn’t know was emblazoned on the big projection screens behind me: “Joseph Burr Bartram Lifetime Achievement Award winner: Bill Prince.”
Six hundred low-key elite-types were clapping and going on, your author oblivious to the reason why—other than what I assumed was my modest personal charm, magnetism and reddish tan.
If I had known, I would have kicked off with, “Hey, I’m 48. You’re giving me a lifetime achievement award at halftime!”
There were no fireworks shooting from airplanes that Sunday morning, but once I finally turned around it all made sense. Too bad I couldn’t go home in one of those Duesenbergs.
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