peter hochfelder yacht

Amazing Photos Of The Two Super-Yachts That This Hedge Fund Manager Can't Sell

Apparently a whole lot of wealthy individuals bought super expensive yachts just before the financial crisis began, and because they take two or so years to build, they keep their old one until their new one is ready.

That method is typically hassle-free, according to the New York Times.

Except now, because of the crisis, sellers are finding no-one will buy their yachts - when back in the day, it was only a matter of time before you put your boat on the market, and someone snapped it up.

Hedge fund manager Peter Hochfelder, the founder of $3 billion AUM Brahman Capital Management, is in this predicament.

Check out photos of his two amazing yachts no one wants here >

Hochfelder already owned a yacht, a 134-foot Lürssen, built back in 1995.

The interior of the yacht, called Blind Date, was designed by a renowned interior designer, and Hochfelder even described it as "sexy, cosy and soothing."

Of that boat, he also once said :

I once ran into [Microsoft co-founder] Paul Allen, who owns the 413-foot motoryacht Octopus. I told him, ‘We have a lot in common. You own the largest Lurssen, and I own the smallest.’

Hochfelder ordered a new yacht in 2007 - a 161-foot Trinity - that builders completed two years later. But no-one will buy the old sailboat. And according to the Times, Hochfelder pays about $4 million a year to run his two boats.

So now he's putting both yachts - both named Blind Date ( because that's how he and his wife met ) on the market, hoping and praying that at least one of them will be bought.

The Lurssen had to undergo a $3.5 million price reduction because it wasn't moving, so now it has a $9.5 million pricetag .

The brand new Trinity will set back the purchaser $33 million - there's a video of it here.

The older one has a $9.5 million pricetag ; the brand new Trinity will set back the purchaser $33 million.

And if you're not in the buyer's market, the yachts can also be chartered .

This is Hochfelder's first yacht: A 134-foot Lürssen called "Blind Date" - it will cost you $9.5 million

This is the yacht's main living area - the interior was decorated by renowned designer Patrick Knowles

And this is the master bedroom - the yacht can sleep 8 people

The ensuite for the master bedroom...

This is one of the yacht's shady deck areas

And here's another with a bar and a ton of deck seating, which gets great sun during the day

This is Hochfelder's newer yacht, Blind Date II. It's a 161-ft Trinity and costs $33 million

The main living area has a bar and a huge flat screen TV

And this is one of the luxurious living areas, with another bar

This is the master suite. The yacht has five cabins and can sleep up to 12.

The master ensuite has a grand free-standing bath

All cabins have an ensuite bathroom

There's tons of lounging cushions to relax on, and look at the jacuzzi in the center of the deck

And another deck at the stern of the yacht has an al-Fresco dining table

And for those who aren't looking to buy, but still want to cruise around the Med come Summer, the yachts are available for charter

But we think we know a few guys who after 2010, may be in the market for some new toys...

These are the hedge funders that absolutely smashed it in 2010 >

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In pinched times, yachts become the hardest sell

What is tougher than having one sleek mega-yacht for sale in a glutted market? The answer, for the moment at least, is having two mega-yachts on the market.

In boom times, yacht enthusiasts would order a new dream boat and keep their old one for the two or three years the builder needed to complete the new boat. Then, they would quickly sell the older yacht to impatient new millionaires and billionaires eager for their requisite status symbols.

But that equation changed with the financial crisis two years ago and took the super-yacht market down with it.

Some of the wealthy have ended up like Peter A. Hochfelder, the principal and founder of Brahman Capital Management, a private investment firm in Manhattan. Hochfelder owned a 134-foot Lurssen, named Blind Date, that was built in 1995. He commissioned a second boat in 2007, a 161-foot Trinity yacht that he christened with the same name. It was completed in 2009.

Now, Hochfelder, who declined to be interviewed, has put both on the market, in the hope that he can sell at least one. He has been asking $9.5 million for the older yacht and $33 million for the new one, which is big enough to sleep 12 guests.

Maintaining a big yacht, after all, is expensive. Yacht specialists estimate that Hochfelder pays about $4 million a year to run his two boats.

"It was a fool's paradise," said Malcolm Maclean, editor at Boat-International.com, a website that tracks the yacht industry.

By one estimate, 300 new boats were sold annually worldwide from the mid-1990s until the 2008 collapse, when sales dropped to about 100. Gone are the days when a speculator could systematically put yachts up on the market and count on a quick sale. British car salesman Ian McGlinn, who died in June, made his fortune by lending Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop cosmetics chain, 4,000 pounds ($6,345) to open a second store. According to several brokers, McGlinn commissioned a series of boats during the boom and sold them at a profit to buyers unwilling to spend two years waiting for a boat.

Today, it certainly is a buyer's market, with everything from 100-foot yachts to those measuring more than 200 feet for sale. The 161-foot Mine Games, a boat built by Trinity Yachts of Gulfport, Miss., was put on the market for $27 million several months ago, for example, because its owner, Chris Cline, who heads Cline Resource and Development, a mine development company, had a larger boat on order.

The industry has picked up a bit in recent months, although most buyers remain on the sidelines. "There is more activity in the used-boat market," said William S. Smith III, vice president of Trinity, the largest custom yacht builder in the United States. "But there is still a lot of inventory, and as long as that is the case, people are keeping their hands in their pockets."

Fear is part of the problem. The wealthy are holding on to their money, and even speculators who built yachts are largely on the sidelines.

Nor has the drop-off been confined to the United States. "Lehman Brothers went down during the Monaco boat show of 2008," Smith said. "And all of these European brokers were smug at first because they thought the European market was decoupled from the U.S. market. But before the show was over, they were not so smug. It had affected everybody."

Some specialists contend that Americans, who long accounted for a majority of the yacht market, have lost so much money that they are leery of committing to any big-ticket items.

Whether that suggests a permanent shift toward buyers in the fast-growing economies around the world is still unclear.

The Chinese have not come into the market, although brokers are hoping that the ultimate status symbol will catch their attention. "It is a big question mark whether the Chinese will embrace yachting," said Bob McKeage, a yacht broker in Fort Lauderdale. "So far it is mostly Hong Kong Chinese, not mainland people." It remains a question mark because forecasting cultural appetites for yachts is not simple. He noted, for example, that there was vast wealth in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, but only the Venezuelans were avid yacht buyers.

While rank speculation may be gone from the yacht market, there are still billionaires who like to sail the seven seas and are willing to pay for that pleasure.

Some yacht brokers say that Americans are holding back now largely because they fear being viewed as profligate when many people have lost jobs, and that they will soon return.

And there are signs of life. Maclean of BoatInternational.com said an American had ordered a 344-foot yacht from Feadship, the Dutch shipbuilder. Meanwhile, M/Y Musashi, a new yacht for Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, is undergoing sea tests. But given the long lead time to build boats, it was probably ordered before the financial crisis, as was the yacht Silver Shalis for real estate developer Larry Silverstein.

Certainly, the escalating prices for assets like art and antiques suggest that the super-rich are increasingly opening their purses and looking for investments that will hold their value.

But whether Americans will dominate the market when better times return is a matter of debate among brokers. Smith, for example, said: "The Russians are coming back and so are the Indians. I don't think Americans will dominate it as they once did."

For the moment, it is just as easy to charter as to buy. Chartering has come back faster than the business of buying boats, or, as Maclean put it, "Would you buy a house right now?" alluding to the uncertainties in that market.

Shannon Webster, a yacht broker based in Fort Lauderdale, said her business this winter had been good. "It is not tremendous, but it is up quite a bit from last year," she said.

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Investigation of Possible Hoax After a Report of a Yacht Explosion Off New Jersey

By James Barron and Michael Schwirtz

• June 11, 2012

It sounded as if a disaster were unfolding in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey, with injured pleasure-boat passengers piling into life rafts after an explosion. An emergency radio transmission said that a yacht had blown up and sunk, that 21 people aboard had made it into life rafts and that 7 were hurt.

That distress call, at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, set off an extensive search. Six rescue vessels headed to the location the call had mentioned, some 17 miles off Sandy Hook, N.J. Three helicopters from the New York Police Department were sent to join the search as emergency workers from numerous New Jersey fire departments converged on Sandy Hook, ready to treat the injured passengers or rush them to the closest hospital.

Four hours later, after the rescue vessels had turned back and the helicopters had gone home, the Coast Guard said it had found no evidence of a catastrophe. A Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer Jetta Disco, said that no debris had been spotted, no lifeboats had been seen, no passengers had been found in the area where the caller said the vessel had gone down. Also, no distraught relatives had called.

“We don’t know what became of these people,” she said, noting that the Coast Guard takes reports of trouble on the water seriously and investigates every one. One small Coast Guard boat remained on patrol as darkness fell, and by 10 p.m. officials said that the search had been called off and that the case was being investigated as a possible hoax.

“Making a false distress call is a federal felony,” the Coast Guard said in a statement, noting that it is punishable by a maximum penalty of 5 to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The Coast Guard said late Monday that there were no suspects. They said that hoaxes were not uncommon in the New York region, though statistics were not readily available.

More than 200 emergency workers had responded to help in the search. The Coast Guard sent in vessels from as far away as Jones Beach, on the South Shore of Long Island, and helicopters from Atlantic City. Another spokesman, Petty Officer Erik Swanson, said officials were calculating the cost of the operation. A news conference was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Coast Guard building at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.

If there had been anything to find, the chances were that it would have been found. Petty Officer Disco said the conditions for a search were good. She described the weather in the area as “pretty clear, no fog, good visibility, good search conditions.” The temperature in the water was 66 degrees, she said — warm enough that someone who was thrown in could probably have survived for a while, assuming he or she could swim.

The emergency call identified the vessel in trouble as the Blind Date. According to the Web site vesseltracker.com, three pleasure craft have that name, but it was not clear whether any of them had been in the area. One was a 134-foot yacht built in 1995 that was listed for sale last year — and, on Monday night, was still for sale with an asking price of $7.5 million, according to the Web site superyachts.com.

Another Blind Date was an even larger yacht, a 161-foot craft built in 2009 for the same owner, Peter A. Hochfelder, the founder and principal of a private investment firm in Manhattan. His young daughter, answering the phone at home, said she knew nothing about a yacht explosion.

The Coast Guard sent helicopters from Atlantic City and what it called “motor lifeboats.” But as the rescue workers milled around the dock in Sandy Hook, preparing to go home, some said they were more relieved than annoyed by what appeared to have been a false alarm.

“I’m just really glad nobody was really hurt,” said a rescue worker from Highlands, N.J., who would not give his name because he had been ordered not to speak to reporters.

Karen DeMasters and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

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‘charged’: film review | santa barbara 2017.

'Charged,' which opened this year's Santa Barbara International Film Festival, tells the story of a chef who was hit with 2,400 volts of electricity and survived the freak accident.

By Stephen Farber

Stephen Farber

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Stories about people coming back from life-threatening injuries or illness are nothing new. These films offer the opportunity to celebrate what used to be called “the indomitability of the human spirit.” Yet the right variation on the theme can revitalize a potentially clichéd undertaking. Charged , which opened the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this week, keeps audiences mesmerized.

Eduardo Garcia was a chef with a passion for the outdoors. On a solitary trek in the Montana wilderness, he came upon a dead bear, and when he touched the bear, he was unexpectedly hit with 2,400 volts of electricity from a nearby power line. It isn’t entirely clear how this happened, but freak accidents are not always thoroughly explicable. Garcia was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries to his head, arms, ribcage and other parts of the body. Eventually his left hand was amputated, and several other surgeries kept him in the hospital for almost two months. As he recovered, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent chemotherapy along with his physical rehabilitation.

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It’s something of a mystery as to why some people survive these trials and others may be destroyed. Clearly Garcia had more ferocious determination than others in this devastating situation. But the film is far from a one-dimensional glorification of a survivor. Garcia’s background is fascinating and complex. He tells us that he was kicked out of nine schools when he was growing up, and his troubled relationship with his father clearly cast a dark shadow. The father abandoned the family when his children were toddlers, and when Eduardo reconnected with him as a teenager, father and son drank and took drugs together. Eduardo also sabotaged a meaningful relationship with an aspiring artist named Jennifer Jane by engaging in compulsive promiscuity.

Amazingly, however, Jennifer became a partner with Eduardo in his culinary enterprises after their romantic relationship soured, and she proved to be a loyal supporter after his injury. She was the one who began to film Eduardo when he was in the hospital, partly to keep him occupied and engaged during the hardest days of his recovery. Eventually the two of them connected with documentary director Phillip Baribeau , who chronicled the later stages of Eduardo’s journey. Baribeau and his cinematographers capture the expansive beauty of the Montana landscapes that enthralled Garcia as well as the oppressiveness of the hospital rooms and corridors where he was forced to spend many months of his life

Garcia had a good deal of support in addition to Jane. His family gave him the nurturing that he needed, and he benefited from his own ferocious energy, which contributed to his recklessness as well as to his strength under pressure. Charged never simplifies Eduardo’s nature or the key relationships in his life. We end up appreciating his charisma and marveling at his resilience without ever seeing him as a paragon. Now, several years after the accident, he has resumed his work as a chef and also travels as an inspirational speaker. Audiences who meet him in person as well as those who see him in this film will find him hard to resist.

Director: Phillip Baribeau Producers: Dennis Aig , Phillip Baribeau Executive producers: Peter Hochfelder , Scott Ballew , Teri Weinberg, Doug Ellin , Constance Schwartz-Morini , Michael Strahan Directors of photography: Phillip Baribeau , George Potter, Jennifer Jane Editor: Tony Hale Music: Joachim Cooder Venue: Santa Barbara International Film Festival

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Eight examples of good old-fashioned hedge fund manager excess

Hedge fund managers are keen to paint themselves as philanthropists rather than playboys. They’re no longer locusts swooping on companies , they’re investors with a conscience who can do good as well as donate millions to charity.

ARK, the annual hedge fund charity gala put on ice for the first time in ten years in 2013 , has raised over £180m, while the glitzy Hedge Fund Cares events in the U.S allows managers to pledge money to charity on a big screen in front of their peers. Michael Hintze, CEO of hedge fund CQS, was even handed a knighthood this year for ‘services to art and philanthropy’, and the navel gazing at a hedge fund conference in Monaco this month was all about socially conscious investing.

It wasn’t always thus – for all the examples of charity work, some hedge fund managers still manage to fall into the old trap of sleaze and excess. Here’s a reminder.

1. Sexy parties and love child

Marc Leder, co-CEO of Sun Capital Partners, has been a tabloid newspaper’s wet dream over the past 12 months. Not only was his home the venue for a fundraiser that featured Mitt Romney’s famous “47% comment ”, but he’s also said to have hosted some racy parties involving nude frolicking and some sex acts . Not only that, but he’s also fathered a love child with a woman he had an on-off affair with for a number of years.

2. Priceless art, or small change?

Steven Cohen, owner of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, is said to be worth over $9.5bn according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, so shelling out a few hundred million for works of art is no big deal. In March, he paid $155m for Picasso’s ‘Le Rêve’, shortly after agreeing to pay $616m to the U.S government in order to settle accusations of insider trading. This is at least the second such purchase by Cohen, who paid $120m in 2012 for four bronze sculptures by Henri Matisse. He also bought Damien Hirst’s pickled shark for $12m, and in 2009 displayed an art collection worth $450m at Sotheby’s in New York.

3. Egg-stravagent purchase

When you have a personal fortune of £450m, as Crispin Odey, founder of hedge fund Odey Asset Management does, it’s easy to lose a sense of perspective. While most people in the UK (outside of London) would be looking to spend upwards of £100k on their first home, Odey decided to shell out £130k for a hen house . This is no ordinary coop, of course, but a neo-classical style palace carved out of grey sandstone that could happily house a family of four.

4. Funding a floater

Sometimes, mainstream society simply doesn’t cater the needs of the uber-rich. Of course, you can buy your own island, but it inevitably comes under the jurisdiction of some pesky government. The solution, at least for Pay-Pal co-founder and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel, was to funnel $1.25m into a project building private floating islands in international waters, called the SeaSteading Institute , allowing “the next generation of pioneers” to form their own city-state. The first, available to at least 50 people, is expected to be ready by 2015.

5. Hoop-less dreams

Christopher Hansen, founder of Valiant Capital Management, is not the sort of hedge fund manager who likes to hog the limelight, but he stepped into the public glare with his attempted purchase of basketball team Sacramento Bees. This was not necessarily a vanity purchase, as the protests from fans expecting a predatory move to relocate the NBA team to Seattle demonstrated, but Hansen’s final bid was a hefty $625m. Ultimately, he failed, but has declined a refund of his $30m deposit suggesting that a legal case could be on the cards.

6. Super super-yachts

You’re no one in the hedge fund world if you can’t sail around in an extravagant super-yacht with an eccentric name. Raffaele Costa, a former Goldman Sachs banker turned hedge fund manager, reportedly dons a mask, leather coat and trousers and samurai sword, calling himself Captain Magic while sailing on his super-yacht ‘Sea Force One’. Dan Loeb, the founder of Third Point and one of the world’s richest hedge fund managers, recently paid around $50m for former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill’s amazing 200-foot yacht. It’s important not to over-extend yourself though – Peter Hochfelder, owner of Braham Capital Management, ordered the construction of a second yacht, Trinity, before he sold his existing boat, Blind Date. He’s now stuck with both that cost him around $4m a year to maintain. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, meanwhile, used his yacht for more creative purposes – capturing the elusive giant squid on video for the first time .

7. Material Girls

There’s no shortage of hedge fund managers with amazingly expensive properties – Loeb owns a $100m apartment in Manhattan , for example – but high-flying Deepak Narula, one of the most successful managers of recent years, has just bought the former New York apartment of Madonna . It was originally on the market for $23.5m, but Narula is believed to have paid under $20m for the six-bedroom 6000-square foot duplex.

8. Marrying into royalty

OK, this is not an example of an over-zealous purchase, but it says something about the circles that hedge fund managers move in that Christopher O’Neill, a partner at Noster Capital, was able to woo Princess Madeleine of Sweden. The couple married earlier this month , but O’Neill decided to decline royal status in order to be able to retain his dual American and British citizenship, which means he’s not a prince. Nor does he have any plans to learn Swedish.

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Brahman Capital was founded by Mitch Kuflik, Rob Sobel, and Peter Adam Hochfelder in 1989. This New York-based hedge fund makes use of long and short strategies and focuses primarily on disciplined free cash flow value investing and special situations with an emphasis on uniquely shareholder driven CEOs.

Mitch Kuflik is an economist with a degree from Harvard University. Rob Sobel received a B.A. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania. Peter Hochfelder, who also holds an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania, retired at the end of 2016. Both Mr. Sobel and Mr. Kuflik currently oversee all aspects of fundamental research and both focus primarily on generating new investment ideas, portfolio construction, and risk management.

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Peter the Great and his boat that launched the Russian fleet

On the shore of Pleshcheyevo Lake, midway between Moscow and Yaroslavl on the Volga River, sits the estate of Veskovo. In 1911, the Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky made the journey to the estate to photograph a small boat (botik) called “Fortuna”. This seemingly modest object is a national shrine associated with the young tsar Peter I, his personal boat from a flotilla built during 1689-92 on Pleshcheyevo Lake. My photographs were taken over a century later, in 2014 and 2019.

Veskovo. Monument to Peter the Great. View toward Pleshcheyevo Lake. June 7, 2019

The estate lies some 2 miles south of the town of Pereslavl-Zalessky, long patronized by Russia’s rulers. It was established in 1152 by Yuri Dolgoruky, prince of the large territory of Rostov-Suzdal and founder of Moscow. Settlers from the territory of Kievan Rus had moved to the area since the turn of the 12th century, The town’s name is thought to derive from the town of Pereyaslavl, near Kiev, with the addition of “Zalessky” (“beyond the forests”) to signify that the settlement lay within a forest zone.

Veskovo. Monument to Peter the Great. View toward Pleshcheyevo Lake. Summer 1911

Yury Dolgoruky spent most of his life in a quest for the princely throne in Kiev, and he died in 1157, within a year after achieving that goal. The major monument to his rule in Pereslavl-Zalessky is the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior. Begun in 1152 and completed by his son Andrey Bogolubsky in 1157, the cathedral is one of the earliest cut stone churches in Russia.

Veskovo. Triumphal Arch (entrance to estate). June 7, 2019

Pereslavl-Zalessky had several monastic institutions that reflected the town’s role as a center of early missionary activity at a time when much of the surrounding territory had only nominally accepted Christianity. The number of monasteries was also due to the town’s position on a major pilgrimage route used not only by humble believers but also by the grand princes of Muscovy.

The beginning of the Russian fleet

For a brief period in the late 17th century, Pereslavl played an important role in national affairs. In the early spring of 1688, the 15-year-old Peter I was occupied in Moscow with the training of his Western-inspired army regiments when he caught site of a small English boat — the “St. Nicholas” — in a shed with objects that belonged to his great uncle, Nikita Ivanovich Romanov.  

Veskovo. Boat House. View from monument to Peter the Great. On either side: anchors from boats in the Pleshscheyevo flotilla. August 22, 2013

Seized by a desire to master the maritime arts, Peter had the boat refitted by a Dutch ship master, Karsten Brant. He began sailing on Moscow’s Yauza River and on the pond at Izmailovo, an ancient Romanov estate rebuilt by his father, Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich (1629-76). (This boat, called “the grandfather of the Russian navy,” is now housed in a special building at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.)

Peter’s youthful ambitions demanded a larger aquatic space for maneuvers, and he soon learned of the smooth expanse of Pleshcheyevo Lake. In order to travel to the lake, Peter needed to gain the approval of his mother, Natalya Kirillovna Narshkina (1651-94), Tsar Alexey’s second wife and subsequently widow. In his Naval Manual of 1720, Peter the Great remembered the way he gained maternal approval: he explained the journey as a pilgrimage to the great Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, located on the route to the lake.

The boat Fortuna, "father of the Russian fleet". View from stern. Summer 1911

On first viewing Pleshcheyevo Lake in July 1688, Peter recognized it as an ideal place to begin the quest to create a Russian fleet. Returning to Moscow, he received the approval of his still-skeptical mother to build a small flotilla on the lake. Work soon began on Western-style boats under the supervision of Karsten Brant at a boatyard established on the small Trubezh River, which empties into the lake near the center of Pereslavl-Zalessky.

However, in the summer of 1689 Peter’s attention was seized by the dramatic events of a looming dynastic crisis. Since the late 1670s and 80s his mother, Natalya Naryshkina, and the Naryshkins in general found themselves in constrained circumstances because of court intrigues. Attempts by Naryshkin supporters to have Peter proclaimed tsar were thwarted, and some members of the family were killed in 1682.

The boat Fortuna. View from stern with rudder. June 7, 2019

A compromise was arranged in which Peter served as co-tsar with his half brother Ivan V, while effective power was held by a regent, Sophia, Peter’s half-sister. Their incipient conflict came to a head in August 1689, when each maneuvered to overthrow the other.

Peter prevailed, and by September, Sophia had been confined to Moscow’s Novodevichy Convent. Although Ivan nominally remained co-tsar until his death in 1696, real power lay with Peter and his mother Natalya Naryshkina.

Building the fleet

Following his consolidation of power in the fall of 1691, Peter left state governance to his mother and turned full efforts to construction of the Pleshcheyevo flotilla. Work was also completed on a complex of buildings at Gremiach Hill (site of the Veskovo estate) that included Peter’s log residence, the “poteshny dvorets.”

By May 1692, at least two frigates had been completed, including the 30-cannon “Mars.” They were supplemented with dozens of smaller vessels, some of which had been hauled from Moscow over the winter.

Monument to Peter the Great. View from park, with text of Peter's order (ukaz) to preserve the Pleshscheyevo flotilla. Summer 1911

Although by no means the largest boat in the flotilla, “Fortuna” was considered the most important and by the late 18th century was even called “the father of the Russian fleet.” The Dutch-type oak vessel (called “shlyupka” in Russian),  24 feet in length could accommodate five pairs of oars and had a reinforced block for a mast and sails in the middle. It was steered by a rudder.

Monument to Peter the Great. View from park, with text of Peter's order (ukaz) to preserve the Pleshscheyevo flotilla. June 7, 2019

“Fortuna” may well have been built by Peter himself with the help of Brant. The physically strong young tsar was not averse to manual labor, and he later worked at a Dutch shipyard in 1697 as part of his “Grand Embassy” to Holland and England in 1697-98.

It is generally thought that Peter tried his hand at directing flotilla maneuvers from “Fortuna.” These exercises concluded on Aug. 1, 1692 with a mass display of the flotilla with cannon fire. Peter’s steadfast Butyrsky Infantry Regiment from Moscow also participated in the demonstration.

Veskovo. White Palace. Summer 1911

Thereafter, Peter’s ambitions inevitably turned to the open sea, and in 1693 he moved naval operations to broader vistas on the White Sea at the port of Arkhangelsk. Nonetheless, the Pleshcheyevo period remained firmly Peter’s mind as an essential part of his legacy.       

Preserving history

During a trip through Pereslavl-Zalessky in February 1722 at the beginning of his campaign against Persia (1722-23) Peter noticed the rapid decay of his Pleshcheyevo enterprise and commanded that it be preserved. The Pleshcheyevo flotilla was taken out of water and placed on blocks, and the Gremyach Hill site was conserved as state property.

White Palace. Main facade. August 22, 2013

Still, little was done to prevent the effects of decay on the wooden buildings and boats. The culmination of the destruction was a fire that swept through Pereslavl in 1783 and destroyed all remaining vessels that had been stored near the boatyard on the Trubezh River. The aptly-named “Fortuna” survived by virtue of its storage at the Gremyach Hill site near Veskovo.

Pleshscheyevo Lake. View from Veskovo toward Pereslavl-Zalessky & St. Nicholas Convent. Summer 1911

In 1802 Ivan Dolgorukov, the new governor of Vladimir Province, discovered “Fortuna” and proposed that the local nobility create a brick structure at Veskovo to house the boat for posterity. The dedication of the small structure in 1803 - the centenary of Peter’s founding of St. Petersburg—is considered Russia’s earliest regional history museum.

Pleshscheyevo Lake. View from Veskovo toward Monastery of St. Nicetas. June 7, 2019

In August 1850 this shrine was visited by Grand Dukes Nicholas and Michael, sons of Nicholas I, who laid the foundation stone for a monument to Peter the Great overlooking Pleshcheyevo Lake. Designed by the Moscow architect Peter Campioni, the obelisk of red Finnish granite was dedicated in August 1852, Bronze letters on one façade display Peter’s 1722 instruction to preserve the flotilla. A triumphal arch was also erected in August 1852 at the estate entrance.

"Fortuna." View from prow. June 7, 2019

The culminating component of the Veskovo museum ensemble was the White Palace, built in 1853 with donations from local nobility and merchantry. Originally used as a social center, the building now houses major museum displays.

Through all of the upheavals of the 20th century the museum ensemble at Veskovo, so carefully photographed by Prokudin-Gorsky, has remained intact as a memorial to one of the defining events in Russia’s development.

In the early 20th century the Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky devised a complex process for color photography. Between 1903 and 1916 he traveled through the Russian Empire and took over 2,000 photographs with the process, which involved three exposures on a glass plate. In August 1918, he left Russia and ultimately resettled in France with a large part of his collection of glass negatives. After his death in Paris in 1944, his heirs sold the collection to the Library of Congress. In the early 21st century the Library digitized the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection and made it freely available to the global public. Several Russian websites now have versions of the collection. In 1986 the architectural historian and photographer William Brumfield organized the first exhibit of Prokudin-Gorsky photographs at the Library of Congress. Over a period of work in Russia beginning in 1970, Brumfield has photographed most of the sites visited by Prokudin-Gorsky. This series of articles juxtaposes Prokudin-Gorsky’s views of architectural monuments with photographs taken by Brumfield decades later.

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Brahman Capital Management founder buys at Two Park Grove

Hedge funder paid $7.7M for Coconut Grove condo

Brahman Capital Management founder and principal Peter Hochfelder just closed on a unit at Terra and the Related Group’s Two Park Grove project.

A trust in Hochfelder’s name led by his wife, Stacy Hochfelder, paid $7.7 million for unit 20AB at the condominium, property records show. Lourdes Alatriste of Engel & Völkers Miami represented the buyer.

The 23-story, 67-unit building is the second tower of the 297-unit, three-building luxury condo development in Coconut Grove. Closings at Two Park Grove, located at 2821 South Bayshore Drive, began in June, according to property records. Buyers include Ryder System executive Eugenio Sevilla-Sacasa and Douglas Elliman’s Cecilia Samaja.

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Hochfelder’s Manhattan-based investment firm managed more than $5 billion at its peak in 2015, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Terra and Related scored $112.1 million in construction financing for One Park Grove, the third and final tower of the Park Grove project that includes Two Park Grove and the Club Residences.

The complex design will feature a restaurant by Miami restaurateur and chef Michael Schwartz, a gym, spa, sauna and steam rooms and a wine tasting room. The development was designed by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA and Arquitectonica with interiors by Meyer Davis Studio.