Italian yacht builder teams up with Hong Kong interior designers to create bespoke “floating villas” for wealthy Asians

Italian shipyard Sanlorenzo has partnered with a Hong Kong-based interior designer to create bespoke “floating villas” targeting wealthy Asians

Simpson Marine Group, which represents the maker in Asia, has doubled sales this year with Covid-19 doing little damage to lifestyle

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Aerial view of the Marina Club in Discovery Bay in Lantau, where the developer has pledged to turn its marina into “Hong Kong's most exclusive” superyacht club. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 7:15am, 14 Oct 2020Updated: 11:58am, 15 Oct 2020

An Italian luxury yacht builder has partnered with Hong Kong-based interior designers to create new bespoke “floating villas” targeting the wealthy in Hong Kong and Asia looking for an alternative form of holiday homes.

In an attempt to attract more buyers, the builder Sanlorenzo will be working with Hong Kong-based Steve Leung Designers to infuse luxury residential designs into the compact space of a yacht in an attempt to redefine and elevate the lifestyle among the region’s millionaires.

The new partnership will bring Leung and his team’s expertise to the rest of Sanlorenzo’s range of yachts through their “design to measure” style, according to Sanlorenzo, a shipbuilder founded in 1958 and based in Ameglia in northern Liguria region.

“Yacht design has long been dominated by a Western lifestyle approach, which is very different from the way we live in Asia, especially in China,” said Leung, an architect and interior designer whose firm was engaged in the Novotel Citygate project in Tung Chung and the Orchard Residences luxury apartments in Singapore, among others.

Hong Kong architect and interior designer Steve Leung is teaming up with Italian yacht builder to create “floating villas.” Photo: Handout

Simpson Marine Group, which represents Sanlorenzo in the regional yacht markets, has doubled its sales in Asia this year, including nine yachts by the Italian builder in Hong Kong. They contributed more than 60 per cent of the group turnover, according to its managing director Mike Simpson.

The pickup suggests the economic crisis from the Covid-19 pandemic has not done much damage to the wealth of the richer segment of the population. The number of millionaires in Hong Kong rose 22 per cent this year, while China’s billionaires have this year rebuilt their net worth to the size of the Russian economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.