An Artistic Couple’s Extraordinary House Boat | HOUSE TOUR

I'm Heather Mackenzie-Chappelet. And I'm Nils Chappelet. Victoria and Richard Mackenzie Childs are my parents. They bought this ferry in 2004. They had already been through bankruptcy with Mackenzie Childs, the business that they started in 1983. Yankee was built in Philadelphia in 1907. And it was meant to be a bit of a luxury ferry. Victoria, she always loved New York. With all the layers of texture and people and cultures coming together. But she couldn't find how to be there with lots of space to work. And had this idea of wanting to be on a boat. It was just an extraordinary way of living in Manhattan. But feeling almost like you're out at sea. This boat was very inspirational for really being like a rebirth of ideas. It was love at first sight, for sure. The Yankee was known as one of the fastest ferries. During the First World War, it became consigned by the government. It was meant to look after U-boats, German U-boats. Search for them. Search for them around the Boston area. And then after that, it was assigned to go to New York. And then that's when it served as a ferry to take immigrants from Ellis Island to shore. Then it served on the first fleet that took visitors to Liberty Island. To visit the Statue of Liberty. I think that was in 1932. And then at the Second World War, it was consigned again by the government. This time to Philadelphia. Back to Philadelphia. Its birth origin. For the Second World War, it was transformed quite a bit. In order to accommodate for bigger army things to get on it. They destroyed this turtle deck. The beautiful turtle deck that it had on the top deck there. And put a big metal piece on it. So that they could carry a lot of people and things out to bigger boats at sea. In order to go to war. Then after the Second World War, it was taken to a new service. To serve on Block Island. And that's where it had its longest stretch of activity. Taking people in and out of Block Island. And it was called Block Island for a little bit I think. And then that's where they renamed it the Yankee after all. Because they thought it needed a personal name. I think it was the early 80s, late 70s. The Coast Guard wanted to retire the boat because it was getting old. And then that was when its next owner came along. Jimmy Gallagher. Who was an antique dealer. And he towed the boat from there to Tribeca. To Pier 25. It was really in a bad state. There were animals living on it. And there was the promenade that was all broken down. So Jimmy kept the boat up and running. And improved it actually quite a bit. The boat was running in those days. He even took it out in the 90s. I think they kept turning on the motor. Up to when Victorian Richard bought it. And they went out on the boat in 93. That was the last time that it went out. Over here is the main sitting area of the salon. And we have again a great mix of things to look at. This is actually an original Mackenzie Childs piece. This is a wreath that my father made. He loves collecting things. He's just always, every time he goes anywhere. He's just finding little things and taking them home. At some point he will make them into some composition. One story I have about him is that. This is my daughter that tells this story. That they were all in the boat. And they didn't see Richard. Where was he? They couldn't find him. And then they are looking around. And they saw that the kayak was no longer there. And then they saw that the kayak was over on the other side of the river. On the island over there. But they saw that the water was rising. And that the kayak might float away. So this guy that was staying on the boat. This Danish guy. He actually, we didn't have a kayak. So he blew up an air mattress. And paddled out to get my father. And my father was just blissfully collecting things on the island over there. He had a whole bag full of goodies. That he was going to bring home. And turn into something special. And he didn't see anything wrong with him being out there. And nobody knew. So he was always creating from things like that. And he still is. Up here we have some of the prize pieces. Of Victorian Richard M Prize. V&R M Prize. Most of them. In fact I think all of them up here were made in Italy. There is the Murano glassware. And the pewter details. Absolutely so beautiful. This was actually the cottage that we lived in. In England. When Richard had a job at the pottery. At the local pottery. Here we have our world map. See where we want to go next. Our trunk ready for traveling. And again another collection of shells. But you know. You have to make sure if it's fake or real. And this is always a great piece for every child that comes to visit. Our nice lion here. And the rug was from a trip that we all did in Morocco. Always bringing things from all over the place. And just bringing them all layering up on top of each other. Pattern after pattern. And making something new. There's all kinds of eclectic things that you are going to discover. Of Richard and Victoria's treatment of this Yankee fairy. So here is a great example of their style. They did ask your Mackenzie Charles. They started this company VNR M Prize. Which means Privileged Pursuit. And this is a lamp that is quite extraordinary. This great lamp that you see. You can light it up. You see these layers. This patchwork of ideas. You can see the lampshade is upside down. And here is the table with the vegetables on it. With the corn here. They love. Often people that are into their lines. Think that you have to do the whole space with their products. And they actually love mixing in all different types of products. And you can see how they are attracted to. That idea of people all being artists. This type of frame is known as. It's called Tramp Art. And it would have been made by traveling salesmen. That would whittle their old crates. And cigar boxes. Into these funny forms. That doesn't take any nails. They are just all fit together. This is called the crown of thorns. Over here. Look at this. This is a wooden chain. Made of just one piece of wood. Again, imagine. Doing this. The work that it would take to whittle each of these chain links. These were done often by prisoners. Trying to make sense of their lives there. And doing something that they could enjoy. For no reason. Because it's beautiful. So the feeling of being in this room is really cozy. We've had a lot of moments with family here. All sitting together and visiting. And passing things around. And also a lot of reading goes on in this. Richard loves to read. And he's always sitting under the lamp and reading. It's very dim light though. But he manages anyway. And this is actually Richard's. One of his favorite chairs right here. Look at this incredible needle point with this monkey. In the middle of these flowers. Such ridiculous ideas together. And he didn't do that. But he appreciates the incredible hand work. To do something that has, it's like a joke. So at the same time as being a joke. It's an incredible amount of work to do. And this is an old organ. I think that got picked up from the street. If I remember correctly. And then here we have another one of those incredible traveling suitcases. This is where all the linens are stored. For working in the kitchen. Look at this incredible embroidery. That they found for this cozy. Again, people that just put all this work just mysteriously. Because there are not these well known artists. But they do incredible and very heartfelt work. All of the tea towels are nicely folded up in here. And on this side we have the tablecloths that are hanging. I can't get that open right now. But that's the way they're hanging inside there. As if they're garments. And even look at the ceiling. Look at all the work that they did. The painting of each little part of the molding is different. Imagine just all the work that goes into. To getting all that perfectly straight. And then wallpapering with this. Something that you wouldn't have imagined you would have put there. But it works. Lots of work that was done on this boat. Of course is not the work that's important to keep the boat afloat. It's just because it's gorgeous. Here we are in the galley. This is really where we cook and have our regular everyday living. This tablecloth is a beautiful story. This is my great great aunt Marion. She was from an aristocratic background. But she became a dancer. So she was kind of rejected from the family. And had a life of her own. Very creative. And she was living in France for a couple of years. And when she left she had a dinner party. And she had all the people to sign their names on the tablecloth. And then she had them embroidered. So what a beautiful memory that she kept with all of us. As usual Victoria and Richard love to mix up pieces. And have antiques mixed in with their own pieces. This is the line called Superfluous. Often Victoria and Richard don't love to put the whole line all together on the same place setting. They like to have these pewter fish plates mixed in. They don't want everything to match. Back in the day these egg cups would have been filled with eggs that were from the chickens that were right out here. They had chickens up until a few years ago. And so we had fresh eggs here on the boat. These biscuit tins. These are used all the time. This is the way she stores the biscuit tins. She's always making biscuits for people. Whenever she needs to talk to somebody about something. Biscuits or pies. Actually she's incredible. That's what she's really good at is pies. These cupboards were put in place by Jimmy Gallagher. And as you can see they have these little locks right here. Because when it was in Tribeca the boat swayed a lot. Because the ferries were going by and often it was like whoom whoom. So we had these all latched here. And inside we have, here's the whole line of Superfluous. Superfluous is a line that we use on a daily basis because it's very easy to use. It stacks up easily. It's no gold so you can put it in the dishwasher. And then we have the whole line of Evervolving. Which is a lot more involved to use. This little owl was made in honor of Victoria's sorority. That was the motto for her sorority in college. And pretty cute glass. Treatment of the window. Even the things that break can be made into something really beautiful. This was something that they did regularly. Is to use any glassware that had broken and string it together with a bunch of odd beads. And use it as a lovely way of filtering the light into the room. Here is where all the cooking happens. And we used to have this really beautiful old stove here. I forget what market was that. The old white stove from maybe the 30s or 40s. And for some reason she always wanted a barbeque instead of that. I don't know why. But here is the barbeque. She traded this and got this barbeque. And she still manages to do quite amazing dinners from this barbeque. But we find it quite challenging to understand it. So this kitchen has turned into this kind of industrial look with this barbeque right in the middle. We have a great spot for washing dishes because look at the view. There is that little island that I was saying that Richard went out for a little kayak ride to. And the challenge though can be that in the winter, you know, there is just a hose that brings water to the whole boat. And keeping that hose from freezing in the winter is always quite a challenge actually. There is always a moment where we are like, oh, we don't have any water. The pipes are frozen. So that can be one of the main challenges of life here. Welcome to the cargo deck. As you can see, for cargo. And there are even cars that came on here at some point during the Block Island time of its work. And this floor here is actually original to the boat. There's many things that have been replaced and fixed on the boat. But this floor, if you can imagine, has been there since 1907. And it's become now a workshop. So we have all the tools for getting all sorts of projects done here. This vase, it's called the Ischgebibel series. That was something that Victoria and Richard did with their company, V&R M-Prize or Victoria and Richard M-Prize. This is just a one of a kind. I don't think they actually made that into a product that was sold. So it's very special. You can see that we have all the trunks along here. They are inspired obviously by the history of this boat. And this being the cargo deck would have had all these trunks here. And they use them to put things away. And I must say it's one of the most frustrating systems of putting things away. Because if you need to get a pillow or a duvet out from here, you have to take all of these down. And it's quite a process. Because everything that Victoria and Richard do, there's a sense of decorative. But it's also something that's used. They love using everything. So even if it's not the most practical thing to use, but it's the most beautiful thing to use, they'll use it. And for instance, look down here. There's this wonderful... I believe it's probably from the 20s. Maybe people had these kind of things when they were coming from Ellis Island. And had all of their linens and clothing on these hangers here. Can you imagine? It's like a traveling wardrobe. So incredible. With these little drawers. And they're still all used. And that's one of the things that Victoria loves using these things. Because it actually helps to keep them... If you don't use things, they don't work any longer. This keeps them here and alive. So over here we have the photos that explain the history of the Yankee. And the history is something that inspires Victoria and Richard as well. Because it was a boat. And a boat is to get you from one place to another. But again, it was a place that people not only went from one place to another, but they enjoyed the whole experience. And it was really very luxurious to begin with. Here's the first owner with the first captain. And you can see how completely elegant it was. This is when they had the turtle deck up here. So this large arch ceiling, which has now been flattened. Because during the Second World War, they cut that off and put a big metal sheet there. And the staircases are now metal. That was also changed during the Second World War. And you can see here, they were all ornate woodwork. It was like being in some incredible mansion on the inside. You're on a floating mansion in the high seas going out to the Calendar Islands. This is a depiction of the Casco Bay. All of the ferries going out to different locations to enjoy the great outdoors of Maine. Look, even while they were on the boat going out, they had a full band with a harp and a viola and a violin and the cooks and the captain. You know, they really had a good time. And this would have been maybe from 1910. Then, very quickly after that, the boat was commissioned. Let's see, where's that? Oh, right here. See, 101st Infantry. It was commissioned for the First World War. And its main job was to look for U-boats in the Boston Harbor. Oh, and you can see, look over here. We found this cannonball from that. It's really heavy. And that is from that time where it had a cannonball to protect itself from those Germans. Apparently, it didn't have to use it. Here, you can see that after the First World War, it came to the New York Harbor. At that point, it was called the Machigone. And here, it's depicted along the shore with all the trunks coming from Ellis Island. All the people were bringing their belongings and going to Manhattan from Ellis Island. And some of these photos are getting quite a lot of humidity. But fortunately, they're not originals. We'll be able to replace them. At this point here, it changed names to Hook Mountain. It was a boat that was at every important place in history. And here again, it's at one of those times where William Randall Hearst was coming back from a big holiday. Or maybe not a holiday, a diplomatic trip in Europe. And he was greeted by the boat. There was a big party greeting him in the Harbor of New York as he got back. You can see here, this has changed to Block Island. So after it was commissioned again for World War II. So it's been in World War I, World War II. And then it went on vacation to Block Island. But you can see from this picture how sleek the boat is compared to many other passenger boats. It was really a boat that was built to go out in the high seas and sort of cut through like a knife. People talk about how smooth it was and how fast it was compared to other ferries at that time with the technology that they had. Here are the people going out to Block Island. All of these pictures are from its time in Block Island, which was its longest career. This depiction of it as a Statue of Liberty ferry right there. And it's 1930, let's see, I think it's 1935, this depiction here. There's a bed that folds out from here. So we have places to sleep. We're very welcoming here. There's space for everybody in all sorts of nooks and crannies. Victoria and Richard, they were originally intending to be fine artists making sculpture. They were at Alfred University, which is very known for ceramics and ceramic sculpture. And then from there, my father got a job in a pottery in Devon, England. I was eight at the time, and we lived there for two years. And because he worked in this little pottery, he got to have studio space to work there. And then when their visas ran out and they had to come back to the U.S., he also got a job at Wells College teaching sculpture there. And we were out really in the countryside, and then my mother started making these plates. And then my father quickly got into the work as well to help with the technicality of the whole, you know, the way the clay and the glaze fits together. So she went to a store on Madison Avenue, just walked into the store with a box of plates, and they started buying them. And that was in 1983, they started the business, and, you know, it had 18 years of success. They were just creating and creating and creating all the time. There's just sort of this mysterious, almost spiritual impulse to create. So that was McKenzie Childs. It came to a rough ending. There was a whole series of events that made it that they really couldn't keep it all together. So they lost that business, and Victoria, she didn't want to be upstate. She wanted to be in New York. She always loved New York, with all the layers of texture and people and cultures coming together. But she couldn't find how to be there with lots of space to work, and had this idea of wanting to be on a boat and started to research, but found it was quite complicated. There's not a lot of places where it's really authorized in New York to live and work on a boat. And then she was a rollerblader too. She rolled up to this boat on Pier 25 and asked the owner right there, Jimmy Gallagher, if it was for sale, and it was. And so here we are. Here we are in Victorian Richards' room, bedroom. And we can see so many different influences here. When they started to live on the boat, they started to work a lot with found objects or things that are related with industrial metal work right here. Look at this little stool. So elegant. And then they use these little faucet pieces that you can find on engines and that kind of thing. They got very influenced by the aesthetic of the workings of the boat. And this box, actually, this is an Austrian company that I think they are still in business. Every year they make a Christmas box like this, and inside there are all these other little beautiful boxes as well with Christmas biscuits. Here is a little creation that was a birthday present. He was really good at getting presents for people's birthdays, and they were always so special. But you can see it looks like just almost like a pedestal. And then up inside there are these special little beautiful pulleys. This painting was done by a student of Richards. He didn't teach painting. He taught pottery, sculpture, and clay. And the first assignment he would always give everybody in his class is you just have to make something that's over two feet tall, which was sometimes quite a bit for somebody who had never worked with anything in clay. How do I make something that's two feet tall? And that was a big challenge. This woman, Gilda Oliver, has gone on to make everything over two feet tall. She always makes these huge portraits of people, and she's gotten to be actually quite a well-known artist in her field. Anyone recognize? That's me. I think I was maybe 13 in that picture. When I was a lot smaller, I did this little critter over here. Ah, yeah. Yeah, there's some things that are, you know, everyone wants to cherish their children's artwork over here. My father would actually be very good at sort of teaching me. That was a still life that he had me paint when we were living in England. Later on, when I was in high school, I did these socks. That's quite a few pieces of you. But yeah, then we have a portrait of their dog, Pinky, over here. And these wonderful umbrellas done by Elizabeth Matt. So this is actually Richard's quilt. It also has traces of his cat on there, Zeno. This is actually the McKenzie plaid done in vegetable dyes made in Scotland. They used to work with weavers, traditional plaid weavers in Scotland for their products at McKenzie Childs. And, you know, there's always two versions of each plaid. One is the modern version with the chemical dyes and one is the old version with the vegetable dyes, which is often natural tones. Richard and Victoria, they love that sort of funky history of the way the Scottish people, you know, they have so much flair with their style as well. I had to wear one during the celebration of our wedding. Yeah, you looked good in that too. And that was quite something. Here we have their bed with a great view again of the water. And you can see this room, the whole room, the background is made of all different colors. That was something that they would do to just get rid of old paint. They'd always save, you know, little bits of leftovers of paint from other jobs and then use it for wall decorations to kind of keep the element of surprise. You never know quite what the patchwork will look like in the end. These double beds, again, you see the playing with all kinds of remnants here that she's so renowned for. And they put these bunk beds here, I think, for our children because when we were visiting, they wanted the little critters to stay with them. So they would always sleep. Actually, even now, they sometimes come and sleep here because they like this connection. And this is a great, this is one of the best views, I think, on the boat when you lay on this bunk bed, you see the view of the water and this island again. But that's the story of these bunk beds. God Is Love is the main modus of the house, of the boat, of everywhere they go. So this floor has many bedrooms, but we want to show you this one specifically because it shows some interesting features of their style. And so you have, this bed is interesting because they had this painting made of another student, I believe, of Richards. And their ceiling wasn't tall enough, so they wanted to find a way to have it in anyways. So this is what they did with it, a baldequin for the bed. So if you have nightmares at night and you wake up and you see this one, it can be interesting, but we like it nevertheless. And this is a great example of this industrial inspiration that developed with the purchase of Yankee. You see what they did with some plumbing pieces here. They made this elegant, quite fragile actually, but this interesting lamp here. Here's also things that she has loved to make, these patchworks of things, non-cushions like this. These are just remnants. They probably, the best ones are probably not here anymore because people probably purchased them. But this is also a piece of products that they used to make when they had Mackenzie Childs down in the bed here. And again, always a play with themes. You see how they put these little buttons onto this bed cover here. This is a lamp of also V&R M-Prize with a mix of animals and vegetables. Isn't that fun? And now we can take you upstairs where more fun happens. Here is the passenger deck. This is the grand room of the Yankee. This was where most passengers would come. As you can see, there are all these original benches and all these moldings and everything, window decoration. This is all original to Yankee from its very birth, I believe. But this ceiling has changed over time because this is where they had this turtle deck a beautiful turtle deck. But this has turned into a great dining space that Victoria and Richard have decorated with this table that you see it sort of floats again using the industrial ideas of the piers and boats with pulleys that make it so that this table is actually very practical for being on a boat because when the boat rocks, then the dinner stays in place. If you want to stop dining and have a dancing party, we can lift it up to the top. And we've had many interesting events here that Victoria and Richard would put on with great imagination. Thanksgiving and Christmas, of course, but also other events. There was the giraffe party. A friend of my mother's, her name is Suki, she said she loves giraffes. And so Victoria decided to put on a giraffe party for her. We obviously can see a lot of people around this table. And we had all of the salad bowls suspended from the ceiling right around here. And the idea is that you had to eat like a giraffe. You had to go like this and eat them. You weren't allowed to use, there were no forks or knives to eat your salad. You had to eat them like a giraffe would. And that was just ridiculous. And then she had this perfectly domed cake that when you cut into it, the inside was made like a giraffe skin inside the cake, which is pretty, you know, quite an engineering feat in the making of cakes. There are other parties where she had food that was cut out to be looking like little pieces of clothing that were suspended on a clothing line. And you would, you know, there was like a soup that you could wash your clothing in, take them off of the line and put them into the soup. Just, you know, and these ephemeral moments where only a few people ever get to see these works of art and then they eat them and they're gone. So that was life. Here's an example of the juxtaposition again. Another, you know, word we always use of hunting cloth on these, you know, rather silly, ornate, sort of Louis XIV chairs. So the kind of irreverence of putting all these different materials together. At one point, there was the project of putting this little fringe on the table. That was actually for a Christmas party where the table was actually lowered down to the ground and the Christmas tree was on top of the table and it was just hovering above the ground. And this was the Christmas decoration that has stayed in place because it was so pretty. Do you recognize the image again? Wow. Here she is again. Here I am again. This was done by a painter called Louis Brydon. The story goes that I stood for 99 hours for that, I don't know, forever. There was only 10? I think I was, yeah, I think it was nine. I think I was nine. And he had not done a portrait before. As it shows on her face, she's compassionate. But again, that clothing was not, that was Victoria that shows my outfit. And that was an outfit that was actually worn by my grandmother as a costume. So it does have our family heritage of Scotland, but it actually wasn't a real Scottish outfit. It was actually a costume that my grandmother would wear when she was a little girl, and she was performing for the troops during World War II. Over here we actually have a framed sweater. Which is dangling, you see, with the movement, with the rocking of the boat. Yeah, you can see the rocking of the boat there. It's a piece particularly well suited for Yank. My great-grandfather wore that sweater, and I wore that sweater, and now nobody wears it. It's framed. Well, this area probably carries most of this history because so many people at different epochs just have been here probably and shared and exchanged. Because this was the main area where passengers, whether they were these immigrants or these rich New Yorkers or these visitors of Liberty Island or all these folks from Block Island going back and forth, they probably spent a lot of time in this area. And here there's a stove here that made this a little warmer probably when it got a little cold. Now it's turned into this more of a salon where we end up often whenever we have visitors. And you see a beautiful piece, shells turned into art by Richard. This is really something he loves making. And you have a baby grand piano that is pretty historical as well over there where I still use it, even though it goes through many different temperatures during the year. It survived. Well, when we first got to the boat, this was very empty up here. And this is where we did children's camp with the children in Tribeca. We did a theater camp and they made all their costumes and did all their rehearsals here. And the play took place. I think we had the audience travel from here to upstairs to see the children do their play. When I think about the next chapter of this boat, I hope that it will be a chapter where a lot more people will come and enjoy and really just get to be communing together here. Here's a little portrait of my dad. This was made by his sister who just fairly recently did a, well, I think it was maybe five or six years ago, did a class on doll making. Look at those hands. I mean, aren't those incredible? And since his hands are really incredible. Yeah. She made a point of showing it. She really put a lot into the hands. So he sits here on his driftwood environment right here. And this lamp we've seen has followed us through. They had it in their house upstate and they have kept this lamp forever. It would take almost a lifetime to talk about all the experiences that we've had on this boat. Yeah, but we had some good times because we put on, Nils and I put on a concert upstairs. At the time, we were doing a show together called Perplex with these costumes and music. And then we also had an extra sort of concert with these wonderful musicians. It was kind of a double concert, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, and then we had another one as well with men. Musicians, yeah, with Mem Nahadar, a great, incredible singer. Jack Sparksbark, the sax player that played with the late D'Angelo now, but just passed away, D'Angelo. Beautiful. And Mark Kelly, who played with Michel Indigocello and all kinds of other. Kwame Brown Pierce, who's going to play this Saturday at Broadway as a homage to Stevie Wonder. I mean, pretty great people came on board to celebrate this or that. So here we are in the captain's quarters, where the captain had his wheelhouse and his living quarters. And you can see what we call the sweeping bow. So everything's on a slant because it's all going up towards the bow in this boat. And this used to be a small open space, and now it's been divided into this cupboard kitchen area right here. And then through here is a sleeping area. So here is a picture of my grandmother with her two sisters. Grandmother was the biggest one. And there's Alba, there's Beta. They would dance for the troops. And that was, you know, one of it. That's not the same costume as what I was wearing for that portrait, but that was from the time that they were doing that. Let's go to the wheel. And here's the wheel, as you can see, which turned into a little bedroom. Spot to sleep in the house with a beautiful view of our industrial waterfront here. And if you need to get a message to someone down in the engineer room, you have to use this pipe here and call down here. And this is where the captain would message because he's steering the ship, but he's not deciding how fast it goes and all the other aspects of running the ship. He has to communicate with the people down in the engine room and down in the shaft alley where the shaft is controlling the propeller. So he really has to have a crew that's ready to listen. He has levers down under here for indicating the different like ringing different bells and gongs. They had kind of a Morse code in order to communicate to the rest of the crew. And now we'll take you down to the bow and meet Bob. Welcome to the bow of the Yankee. My name is Bob, Bob Jellix. And I'm going to talk about the bow of the boat. But it is a shipping department that was designed by Victoria. When I came to Yankee as a handyman, volunteering for stuff. And over time we did projects. And this is the project that I'm most proud of, the ceiling of this shipping department. Victoria and Richard always like to make things unique. And this is another thing that they made unique. The ceiling was just some pieces of sheetrock that were glued up. And there's steel beams in the ship as with all ships. And what we did was Victoria had a bunch of moldings she had from a school upstate. What we had to do was take down that old ceiling. And she wanted this. I didn't think we would finish the job. But eventually we did. And I've never done anything like this in my life. I've done carpentry work but nothing like this. It required a lot of cuts and things that were not so easy to measure. But we ended up finishing it. And I was just amazed at how it came out. And my mom was living in a nursing home, a retirement village and failing. And I sent her videos of this because she liked doing stuff like this. And she was really happy to see it. And at the end I was quite proud of it. I've never done anything else like it. I kind of like to put a ceiling like this in my house. But I don't think my wife would really go for that. So here we are in a very special spot in the boat. It's Victoria's dressing room. Here we have all of her clothes. Some of them are clothes that she'll wear all the time. And some of them she'll wear maybe once or twice. Not so much because she just wants to have lots of clothes. But because when there was an event she would get inspired to make something about that event. And you can see some of these pieces are not the kind of pieces you'd wear every day. The irreverence of materials. Of putting these theatrical elements with plastic. And this one is the most extreme right here. Over here she's got construction fence. And then these little pieces of plastic of all different colors. And this amazing material here linked together. So if you really wanted to you could actually change the order of them. You could de-link and decide to rearrange the whole thing. Look at the pocket here that comes off and on with this little elastic and rubbery. And then of course velvet mixed with the plastic. Amazing tartans. This is tartan that's actually made at a traditional mill in Scotland. And she's made it into this extraordinary... That's just the skirt part of it. So it has like a trail coming out. I mean you could just spend hours just exploring in here. Well actually the dressing room... She used to have this dressing room upstairs. And the crew quarters were down... So all the people that would come help on the boat would have bedrooms down here. But then the coast guard came. Even though traditionally this was always bedrooms in the boat. The coast guard said no, you can't sleep if it's below sea level. So then she moved the dressing room down here. And she found this way of keeping all of her jewelry on these pipes. Which makes it quite decoratively interesting. Most of this jewelry here is jewelry that she has designed. My favorite one is this one with the car driving along here. A little choker. She also has a big habit of wearing ribbons in her hair. Just because maybe her hair is not colorful enough. If you see she has rainbow colored hair. And then why not put more color with these ribbons that she always wears. So over here another really wild example of mixed juxtaposition. That was one of the biggest words for Victoria and Richard. As well as juxtaposition. Where she has bubble wrap mixed with... Look at this gorgeous elegant beading work. So just enjoying beauty everywhere you can find it. Of course this bubble wrap we might want to freshen at some point. I don't know how. And then these sequins on top of the plaid. Such an unusual mixture of things that you wouldn't imagine going together. And you put them together and up you've got a ball gown. I moved around quite a bit as a child. And saw so many different things. And I think really home is about connecting with the people around you. And making a space that you can welcome them into. And then you can also retreat into yourself too. But it can be anywhere. And it can be any shape or form. Homeworthy it was so fun to show you around Yankee Ferry. But you have to go now. So bye. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides and so much more.