Amanda Lindroth’s work draws on memories from a charmed Florida childhood in Boca Raton. Integral to her success, she insists, has been her mother’s innate understanding of scale. “Some designers use fabrics or colors as starting points,” she says, “but I go straight to a room plan to create a design based on proportion.” Her many projects in tropical seaside locations have fostered an ability to create settings of ease and relaxation. Today, Lindroth’s luxurious low-key interiors are synonymous with tropical chic.
For her unexpected boat project, Lindroth was whisked 40 miles north of Palm Beach to the city of Stuart. There, Jim Smith Tournament Boats builds some of the world’s most sophisticated wooden sport fishing craft. Her client, Gina Addeo, had grown up participating in fishing tournaments with her late father on the original Gina Lisa, which had been constructed in the same boatyard more than 20 years earlier. (The eponymous Lisa is Gina’s sister.) Addeo’s nostalgia for this earlier period of her life, as well as her passion for sport fishing, prompted her to build a second Gina Lisa, with the addition of some special finishes and details borrowed from classic yachts of a bygone era.
Flybridge with custom upholstery and pillows.
A leather banquette and custom-built yacht table from Soane. The striped carpet is from Patterson Flynn.
The entrance to the primary state room with celestial de Gournay wallpaper, custom built-in shelves with aqua blue ruched silk lamp.
A Besselink & Jones lamp with aqua shirred shade and white trim stands on the night table in the primary cabin. Custom bedding is from Leontine Linens.
Tiles resembling ocean waves form a backsplash in the primary bathroom, with de Gournay fish-themed wallpaper reflected in the mirror.
Sport fishing reels.
Fishing rods.
The fishing deck.
“Every single inch of that boat is wood,” Lindroth tells me. “It’s handcrafted like a vessel from the 19th century, but with the contemporary conveniences of air-conditioning, a sound system, and a state-of-the-art kitchen, plus all the modern equipment, hydraulics and so forth.”
Constructing a refined wooden boat like this is a slow process and the new 86-foot-long Gina Lisa took two years to complete. “Rather than being slaves to computer-aided design,” Lindroth tells me, “the shipwrights actually made small models of, say, a chest of drawers and then if it didn’t work, just figured it out another way. It’s an incredibly elegant process.”
Lindroth designed the interior in a distinctly feminine style to reflect the tastes and personality of its owner. “Also, we looked at a lot of old boats from the 1920s and ’30s to find inspiration for some of the beautiful details.” The original Gina Lisa of Addeo’s childhood had a spare masculine interior, fit for a latter-day Hemingway. Whereas, the boat’s second incarnation boasts a primary cabin lined with de Gournay wallpapers, and custom embroidered bedding from Leontine Linens. The lamps have rushed silk shades with delicately embroidered borders, and there is even a walk-in closet.
“You don’t often hear de Gournay and sport fishing in the same sentence,” Lindroth says with a smile. “But the client had elevated taste and is experienced with interiors. I loved working on this project!”
