Steady the Boat

Updating a historic vessel, AD100 designer Markham Roberts finds his sea legs

- MITCHELL OWENS

Plates slide, glassware jumps, and books tumble.

Life on a yacht sounds glamorous—but imagine having to decorate one, even for people one adores? “You learn on the fly, so to speak,” says AD100 designer Markham Roberts, when asked to recall working on his first floating project. “When I started, it was rocking so much, the ladder broke.” He had already decorated an apartment for the clients, a Manhattan-based couple. Then, they commissioned him to outfit a vintage boat, one that would sail overnight to Maine, making trips to the Bahamas and Florida (where Roberts’s own grandfather once docked) every now and then. “This is not a major seafaring vessel going to Saint-Tropez,” Roberts adds. “For me this yacht is the antithesis—it’s not vast, it’s cozy and tight.”