On board Tintin with James Berwind

They also have a couple of places to call home on land, in Palm Beach County, and now in Ireland where they intend to create a refuge for unwanted animals – horses, goats and donkeys (more on this later). However, Tintin is where they spend most of their time when they are travelling along the Eastern seaboard of the US.

Their nautical adventures started a few years ago with the award-winning Scout. “The backstory is that we were building a house in Palm Beach at the same time as we were getting into boating. By the time the house (a Bermudastyle, lakefront custom home) was done, we knew how much we liked living on the water,” he says. They sold the house in 2021.

Scout, however, is not always an option as a residence – when it is far away from their home base in Florida, or undergoing maintenance or because it cannot get into small marinas or shallow waters.

The owners enjoy travelling around the Bahamas (they own a couple of slips at Albany), the Keys, including the Ocean Reef Club, and the northeast. They always wanted a less formal home for their family and close friends that could function with minimal staff on board.

Looking for a smaller and nimbler house on the water, they purchased the last hull of Westport Yachts’ successful 112 series and worked closely with designer Sylvia Bolton on an animal-friendly, cruelty-free interior (all vegan materials, no leathers) that reflected their casual approach to yachting, love for art and all things Tintin. Let’s pause here to explain the name because it probably is not what you think.

“Instead of the squirrel theme, we used the boy explorer Tintin; I thought it was perfect,” he says. The comic characters were well represented in the first Tintin’s playful interiors, which, Bolton said when the yacht was on display at a boat show, was intended to make people smile at every turn.

The clincher for the interior theme perhaps was the discovery by the owners, who support the arts, of a painting by William Nelson in a gallery in Nantucket a few years back.

The first of this artist’s paintings to attract Berwind’s eye was of another actress and cartoon character. “It was Liz Taylor in the foreground and Aquaman fighting off the big octopus. I saw it walking by, and I said, ‘I don’t know who this guy is, but I need this piece.’ It is now on Scout.

We started collecting his pieces,” he says. “When we saw the painting of Lauren Bacall with Tintin and Snowy and the captain, I said “That’s it.” This also formed our decision to name the boat Tintin. This is just so perfect. We are big collectors and that is one of our favourite pieces.”

It took the owners a couple of years to finish it to their taste, with few structural changes. They retrofitted a “poop deck” for the dogs (which was custom built on Scout) – fake grass on top of an easy-to-clean shallow box in fibreglass on the upper aft deck – and created a large storage closet on the lower deck but aside from that, and the radically different interiors, the yacht is as it was delivered.

Flooring changed, carpets came off and were replaced, Lumicor (panels made of architectural resin) covered countertops and bar tops, acrylic clouds were suspended from the ceiling, and cheery wallpapers of different kinds (striped, with fishes, finished with fibre that looks like hair and more) covered most walls, including the face of cabinets, which have a metallic look but are covered in a flexible wrap material.

Along with Tintin memorabilia (a bust in papier-mâché they found in Venice; a giant dog Berwind personally decorated with pages of the comic strip applied with glue, purchased in a going-out-of-business sale from a garden shop in St Barths; and various figurines and objects friends bought them from Tintin shops around the world,) are other eye-catching and amusing pieces.

In the upper deck lounge, one of their favourite spaces inside, is a fake suit of armour in the corner with the football-shaped head of Stewie (of animated sitcom Family Guy) under the visor – an instant conversation starter – and a collection of toy outboards motors. “I have been collecting these for years,” Berwind says. They date from the 1920s to the 1970s and include electric- and gas-powered ones.

Visitors love it and the owners love it. “To be on a boat was just so appealing. Moving on Tintin cost us less than maintaining our house, which did not give us that flexibility. I said, ‘This will be our houseboat. Let’s do something extremely fun, airy and cartoonish. Let’s not take it seriously.’ This is not a megayacht or [one we’ll] turn around in a few years. It is our vacation home and it’s been a home run.”

Berwind worked with British design firm H2 on Scout (he says, “Scout is serious design with a sense of humour,” but Tintin is “a walk in a wet bathing suit with the dogs”) and Sylvia Bolton on the Westport.

This time, however, Berwind handled the interior design mostly on his own, although he credits Sylvia Bolton for the materials that he carried over from the Westport. “She was amazing to work with,” he says, recalling the experience of building the first Tintin. He also worked with an interior specialist to help with orders and installations.

Although it has not been his full-time occupation for quite some time, Berwind has more than a knack for design. “I did interior and furniture design and by training, I am a restoration architect, although I have not worked for anyone but myself for years.”

The clouds, a fun feature of floating Plexiglas on the ceiling, were his idea, which he adapted from an earlier design he did in an apartment years ago, and he has an affinity for blue. “It tricks the eye into seeing a higher ceiling,” he says.

He says he helps friends and family with design projects, but a commercially available James Berwind-designed yacht interior won’t hit the market anytime soon. “I am involved in too many things to get into that, and I am never around in one place for very long.”

“We try to take the stigma out of shelter animals. If you want a purebred, we can find one in a shelter anywhere in the world”

This member of the fifth generation of an entrepreneurial family from Philadelphia dedicates a fair share of his life to philanthropy and animal welfare. A few years ago, with other family members, he established Spring Point Partners, a social impact organisation, and he has been closely involved with the animal welfare educational charity Life of Riley. “We spend about 75 per cent of our time (on the organisation),” he says.

“It’s designed to educate the public about animal welfare, rescue animals and shelter animals, and it’s doing a lot to try to enforce laws that are already in place but are not being enforced, trying to shut down online puppy sales and puppy mills. We try to take the stigma out of shelter animals. If you want a purebred, look, we can find one in a shelter anywhere in the world.”