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VENUS Yacht – Captivating $120M Superyacht

The VENUS yacht was delivered in 2012 by Feadship, a Dutch shipbuilding company.

Phillippe Stark designed the VENUS, and Jobs was an integral part of the yacht’s design. The 78m yacht has garnered a lot of attention thanks to the famous name who commissioned it, but there are not many details about the boat’s interior available.

VENUS yacht interior

The interior design of the VENUS yacht was largely designed by Steve Jobs, in combination with Philippe Starck .

The yacht’s interior has never been published, and the details available are in short supply. There is a lot of intrigue as to what the yacht’s interior looks like, thanks to the famous name who commissioned it.

One can only imagine that the interior reflects Apple’s slogan “Think Different,” with an eye-catching and minimalist interior to reflect the design of the yacht’s exterior.

It is known that the bridge is lined with 27-inch Mac computer screens, with large cabin windows that are almost floor to ceiling, with a main living area. There is accommodation for 12 guests in 6 suites and 22 crew.

The VENUS yacht has a unique exterior, reflecting the sleekness and eye-catching nature of Apple’s products, and was designed by Philippe Starck.

Feadship was commissioned to execute the build. Everything about the exterior is eye-catching and unique, from the silver paint job to the stainless steel details to the line of rectangular windows that run from the bow.

The structure of VENUS features 90-degree angles, an axe bow for piercing waves, and a flat and somewhat unusually squared stern that opens to reveal a tender garage.

There is no visible radar arch or satellite equipment, as all the equipment is hidden within a box that keeps the VENUS exterior appearance clean and sleek.

Specifications

The 78m VENUS yacht has an 11.8m beam and a 3.1m draft that makes the boat appear low-slung in the water.

The 2 MTU engines give VENUS a top speed of 20.5kn and a cruising speed of 18kn. She displaces 1,876 GT and can cover 5500 nautical miles.

She has an annual running cost of $10-$15 million and was rumored to cost $100 million to build. VENUS was refitted in 2015 at Monaco Marine.

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See it here first: amazing photos of Steve Jobs' yacht Venus post-refit

The first photos of superyacht Venus after her refit in France have been shared with Boat International . In August this year, 78.2 metre  Feadship superyacht Venus , built for the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, was spotted as she was heading in for a refit at Monaco Marine in La Ciotat, France and photos were taken of her hauled out on the hard at the refit yard.

The new photos show  Venus  emerging from her refit with a gleaming hull, and close-up pictures give an look at intriguing details of the yacht. The bridge on  Venus , for instance, is packed with Apple computers, fitting for a yacht designed for Steve Jobs. The photo above shows that there are seven Mac screens sitting in superyacht Venus ' glass-enclosed bridge, a hint at the technology packed bridge that she is meant to have.

One of the best Feadship superyachts of all time , Venus has a wealth of interesting design features, from her highly innovative glass exterior design to the reported high-tech amenities. The yacht is extremely secret, however, with no interior images ever seen, which is why a photo shoot like this is all the more interesting, giving us an up-close view inside Venus ' bridge and a look at her tender garage, the latter seen in the photos below. A RIB tender is visible stowed in the portside tender garage.

Photos of Venus seen earlier this year showed off some serious scaffolding built up around the yacht, but it was not confirmed whether she was in for maintenance or a more extensive refit.

This isn’t the first time Steve Jobs’ yacht Venus has spent time at a refit yard; she was spotted at the Rybovich yard in Florida just a year after her launch in 2013.

With an immense use of glass and high-tech propulsion and helm set-up, the boundary-pushing superyacht Venus is an interesting challenge for a refit team as she is far from your average superyacht.

Engineering of the futuristic-looking  Venus  came from Feadship’s team at  De Voogt Naval Architects , and a notable feature is her clever upper deck design that conceals communications and TV receivers.

Venus has turned heads since her launch at the Dutch yard in 2012. The yacht’s super-slick, minimalist design by Philippe Starck seemed a perfect fit for the Apple founder. Sadly, Steve Jobs passed away in 2011 before the yacht was launched and never got to enjoy his vessel.

But Venus has been making moves, recently spotted island hopping in Greece. Follow in the wake of Venus with this nine-day cruising itinerary of the locations visited by Steve Jobs' yacht in the Turkish and Greek islands.

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Here’s the First Look Inside Steve Jobs’ Crazy Last Project

S teve Jobs’ luxury yacht, Venus, was photographed recently, providing a glimpse of the interior for the first time.

Photos of 100 million euro yacht were taken by people at Woods Hole Inn in Cape Cod, Mass., Gizmodo reported Monday. The French-designed yacht debuted in 2012, one year after Jobs died, but until now there have been photos of only the exterior.

Have a look:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by woodsholeinn (@woodsholeinn)

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Your Insider’s Look at Steve Jobs’ Yacht Venus

The Venus Yacht was built for Steve Jobs, or it almost was. Though Jobs commissioned the yacht, it was launched in 2012, a year after Jobs passed away. He never got to see the finished product. It’s been said that he actually spent the last several years before his death helping to custom design the Venus as his intent was to use it to sail the world with his family.

Venus was designed by a company called Ubik, owned by designer Phillipe Starck. Starck  handled both the interior design and the exterior design. The build was undertaken by renowned shipyard Feadship out of the Netherlands.

The yacht is a little lighter than some of her size thanks to the fact she doesn’t have a steel hull like many superyachts do. Instead, she features both an aluminum hull and an aluminum superstructure. She also features teak decks.

The exterior design features many straight lines and right angles. The stern is squared and it features an axe bow. There’s also very little to see on deck even from above. Unlike most yachts , there is no visible radar arch or satellite equipment because it’s obscured within a box structure to maintain that simple design look. 

Who Owns the Venus Yacht?

As a result of the death of Steve Jobs the yacht became part of his estate which belongs to his widow Laurene Powell Jobs. She has maintained ownership of the yacht since it was finished in 2012. There was a brief time when the yacht was impounded after its construction. This was caused by a dispute over payment. Phillipe Starck claimed that the fee for his work was never paid in full. He was said to have designed the yacht for about $9 million and $3 million was still owing. After 10 days, Jobs’ estate settled the account and the yacht was delivered.

How Big is the Yacht Venus?

The Venus measures in at a respectable 257 feet in length. So clearly she qualifies as a superyacht, even if she doesn’t quite measure up to Jeff Bezos’ 417-foot megayacht Koru . The Venus also has a beam of about 38 feet and her volume comes in at 1,876 GT which is actually a little on the light side for such a large yacht, in part due to the aluminum construction.

How Much Did the Venus Yacht Cost?

Steve Jobs commissioned the yacht for an impressive $120 million. Yachts like the Eclipse are alleged to be upwards of $1.5 billion and even the massive Azzam has been confirmed at around $600 million so obviously the Venus is not the most expensive vessel, but it’s nothing to sniff at, either.

We know from what we mentioned above that $9 million of that alone went to the designer of the yacht. Like many yachts of this size there is also a considerable cost related to the yearly operations of the vessel. Things like crew salaries, taxes and fuel costs are considerable. In light of that, it’s been estimated that it costs between $10 million and $20 million just to keep the boat on the water for a year. That may seem steep but it’s definitely normal for most yachts.

Is the Venus Yacht Available for Charter?

Jobs was a notoriously private man in many ways and his family remains the same, at least insofar as this yacht is concerned. It’s never been made available for charter and, in fact, very little is known about it.

How Fast is the Venus Yacht and What Engines Does It Use?

The Venus makes use of a pair of twin diesel MTU (16V 4000 M73) 16-cylinder engines. Together they produce  3,433 horsepower. This allows her to cruise at speeds of 16 knots. She can also reach a maximum speed of 22 knots which is fairly substantial for a yacht of her size.

What’s the Interior of the Venus Yacht Like?

As you can tell from the unique hull design, there is a minimalist aesthetic to the yacht. It does resemble some Apple products from the time period in its way. Towards the after of the vessel on the starboard side there’s a launch bay for tenders that can be deployed by crane and apparently the design included a wheelhouse powered by seven 27″ iMacs.

The aft of the vessel opens to a large beach club for guests to enjoy the ocean and the sun, features a swim platform and lounge area.

The yacht has the capacity to accommodate 12 guests across 6 cabins. There is also room for a crew of 22 to maintain the vessel. The design is simple and clean all over. Glass, silver and white with everything polished is what you see all over the vessel.

Features and Amenities

The features of the Venus are actually totally unknown to this day. Jobs has never invited photographers on board to get a glimpse of what the cabins or living spaces may look like so there’s no word on how it all came together. Likewise, the designer has not shared any of the blueprints or ideas that went into making the yacht. This is common among designers of superyachts, however, and many have to sign non-disclosure agreements so they couldn’t share details even if they wanted to. 

Until such time as Laurene Jobs opts to either open the yacht to the public or sell it, the interior details are going to remain a mystery beyond what observers are able to glimpse from afar.

The Bottom Line

The Venus was a yacht partially designed and commissioned by Steve Jobs before his death in 2011. The yacht was finished in 2012 so he never got to see the final product on the water. Jobs once admitted he knew he might die before the yacht was finished but didn’t want to stop his work because he felt like it was an admission that he was going to die and didn’t want to quit like that.

The yacht is very uniquely designed in a minimalist style which reminds many of how Apple products in general are designed. The yacht cost Jobs about $120 million. It measures in at 257 feet in length.

Laurene Jobs is the current owner of the yacht and she has maintained her privacy with the vessel. As such, not only is it not available for charter but no one has seen images of the inside either.

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Steve Jobs’ $250 million superyacht, Venus, finally sets sail

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Venus is 80 meters long — over 250 feet — and has living quarters to accommodate 12 people. Its equipment and living space, according to SWNS.com, can be controlled from seven 27-inch iMacs. The ship has a very unusual design, with a very straight bow and gently sloping stern, and a profile dominated by the horizontal lines of its waterline, windows, deck, and cabin roof.

Above: Steve Jobs’ yacht at sea off Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Philippe Starck created the yacht with complete carte blanche  from the founder and CEO of Apple, as he recently told Super Yacht Times . That was extremely unusual for Jobs, who was notoriously detail-oriented, but this demonstrates the respect he had for the legendary European designer.

Of course, that was simply for the major, exterior design. For the interior, Jobs had more to say. As SYT recounts, Starck and Jobs spent considerable time over those details:

“We spent just one day every six weeks, for five years, on refinements. Millimeter by millimeter. Detail by detail.”

As the photos show, the result of the collaboration between Starck and Jobs is extreme simplicity.

Starck said that “there is not a single useless item inside. … Not a single useless pillow, or a useless object. In that sense, it is the opposite of other boats. Other boats try to show off more and more. Venus is revolutionary. It is the extreme opposite.”

The sad reality, of course, is that Jobs never got to sail in the boat that he built.

Top image credit: Super Yacht Times

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Philippe Starck reveals the real story behind Steve Jobs' yacht

A blunder by a phone operator might have prevented the miracle from taking place and no one would have ever known about it. Philippe Starck still laughs at the thought. It was seven years ago, at the headquarters of his Parisian offices near the Place de la République. The employee had informed the famous French decorator that a Mr. Jobs had called. The young woman did not see who that might be—despite the fact that she probably had a Mac running in front of her and had been downloading music on her iPod for some time. Perhaps she had even seen Toy Story , the film that revolutionized animated features. Still, she had not made the connection with the founder of Apple, former owner of Pixar , the man who transformed technology into an object of desire and commerce. She had written down his name but had refused to disturb her boss. The caller, who had spoken English, hung up without leaving a number. “Can you imagine the aura of Jobs in 2007” chuckles Starck today. “He was basically God! And she doesn't put him through because she didn't know who he is! We were off to a good start.”

It was a miracle that the Californian divinity was not discouraged. “For anyone who knew Steve,” Starck adds, “he almost certainly wouldn't call back after such a humiliation.” A few weeks after this, "God" was on line again. This time, the Parisian designer was just leaving for Milan, to the annual furniture trade show, a ritual meeting place for the experts of planet design. A half-dozen motorcycle taxis awaited him, as well as members of his team, with their engines running. He barely had enough time to make the flight to Italy where a multitude of press conferences had been scheduled—being late was not an option. “I already had my helmet on when the operator caught me, breathless,” he says. “Monsieur Starck! Monsieur Starck! You know that person, that Mr. Jobs? He wants to talk to you!” I took off my helmet and heard his voice: “Would you like to make me a boat?” “Well… sure,” I replied. The two men only exchanged but a few words: “Fifteen seconds” of conversation, confirms Philippe Starck. To the American billionaire's direct question: “Will you know how?” he says he proudly replied, before blazing on to the airport, “Of course! I have palms in between my fingers and scales on my back. I am amphibian.”

The son of an engineer who designed airplanes, Starck spent a great part of his childhood admiring ships. At 15, he taught survival in the case of shipwreck at a sailing school in the bay of Morlaix, he and his brother also raced boats on the Seine. “I always had boats, whatever the size,” he told the quaterly Mer & Bateaux in 2012 . I always have one in the concept stage or the building stage. My wife and I have lived in places where we could have a boat moored in front of our house. We live on the water and for the water.” Famous for his hotel and restaurant designs all over the world —the Café Costes, the Mama Shelter hotel, the Meurice and the Royal Monceau in Paris, the Royalton in New York, the Mondrian in Los Angeles and the Fasano in Rio—Starck did not necessarily want to design yachts for anyone beside himself. In Starck Explications , a manifesto published in 2003 for the exhibition dedicated to his work at the Pompidou Center, he tells the story of a prank pulled on a client who wanted to commission him a yacht : he had advised him to first go for a swim to see whether he truly needed a boat! Later, a “gorgeous woman,” whose name he does not mention, made him a new offer (it was Hala Fares, the spouse of the businessman and Lebanese vice-premier minister Issam Fares) that he declined because he found the very idea of a yacht “structurally vulgar.” The lady, cunningly, defied him to build one that avoided vulgarity, and for her he designed Wedge Too . Six years later, in 2008, Starck conceived the A for Andrey Menichenko, the Russian oligarch. 119 meters long and weighing 6000 tons, it’s one of the greatest motor yachts ever made, and its cost was an estimated $300 million. Its aggressive form was the object of very lively criticism: in an article on January 23, 2008, the Wall Street Journal even wondered whether it wasn’t “the world’s ugliest boat.”

Moreover, Starck prides himself on helping save the Bénéteau ship yard in Vendée from bankruptcy by designing a line of sailboats for it, then conceiving a revolutionary single-rudder racer, Virtuelle , designed in 1997, for a very wealthy Italian (even though the plans are officially signed by a transalpine naval architect). According to Starck, ten years later, it was this sailboat, with its minimal lines, that Steve Jobs cited as an example to persuade him to work for him—“ Virtuelle is the most beautiful boat I’ve seen in my life,” is what he told him ( Mer & Bateaux , December 2012). Starck, who is not averse to tributes, and is prompt to quote this Rousseau sentence : “I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices,” took the compliment as a challenge. Jobs too had his contradictions. In 1995, after Pixar ’s successful skylight public offering, he had said he “was not planning on buying a yacht.” But Venus was not going to be just any yacht.

Par Isaac Bickerstaff

Par Julie Patriat

Par Harriet Johnston

THE ASCETIC AND THE BON VIVANT

On April 28, 2007, Philippe Starck and his companion, Jasmine —he would marry her the following December—turned up in front of Steve Jobs residence in Palo Alto, California, in north Silicon Valley. The area seemed ordinary, the entrance gate did not look like much. A driver had taken them there after a twelve-hour flight between Paris and Los Angeles. Noting the modesty of the place, the French designer felt obliged to add : “We’re going to Steve Jobs’, you know, the head of Apple.” But the chauffeur did not turned around, it was the right address. “We got out. The gate in old ironwork was about a meter tall and there was a detail that struck me and pleased me, it closed with a plumbing jointure. I said to myself, “Wait, it might actually be here after all.” Starck opened it, crossed a “small yard,” knocked on the glass of what looked like a kitchen door. “It vibrated the way old tiles do. No one came but everything was open. Suddenly, a ghostly silhouette appeared, dressed in black. “Hi Philippe!” It was him, he kissed us. He was, straight away, extremely warm.”

It was there, in that “very humble little home in a chic and classic American suburb,” and which Philippe Starck deems was no bigger than 200 sq. meters, “that looked like 150,” that the two men came to know each other. Over the next four years, in the course of regular work sessions, a discreet and stimulating friendship united the two ingenious creative spirits, both endowed with equally oversized egos.

“He was the god of fastidiousness and I, I was the emperor of fastidiousness,” proclaims Philippe Starck quite simply. I am meeting with the designer in Paris, at one of his offices with a view on Place du Trocadéro. I had obtained the interview by dint of persistence and persuasion—after all, Jobs himself had had to call more than once. Starck is always in between two planes and ten homes (he owns properties—among other places—in Paris, Venice, Cap-Ferret.). He wants to be everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent but elusive. After all, he has called his company Ubik, borrowed from Phillip K. Dick’s masterpiece in which characters evolve in parallel universes.

Today, his company's offices and his main home are on the third floor of a majestic 1930s building with a panoramic view of the Eiffel tower and white spaces. Philippe Starck is wearing his usual outfit: jeans, sneakers and a hoodie. Jasmine is near him. A tall brunette, she too is wearing an informal uniform—black jeans and sneakers. A former publicist for the LVMH Group, she never leaves the side of her 65-year-old genius (she is 23 years younger), she monitors and records his words, intervenes, if necessary, to insert a recollection, corroborate a date, clarify a circumstance. A group of assistants finishes sweeping the room we are meeting in. “Cleaning,” in the true sense of the word, as in the figurative sense, is one of his obsessions. One day, he tells me, as he still couldn’t get over having been received by Steve Jobs in a house so wanting in luxury (in 2008, Forbes estimated the latter’s fortune to be $5.7 billion, the equivalent of more than 4 billion euros), he was emboldened to ask, “Steve, do you really live here?” “ Yes, why?” he answered. “It’s just that… everything is so clean, orderly, so tidy…" The Apple boss replied , “Oh, you want to see a mess?” and led him to his office. “There were a few newspapers scattered on the floor and two pairs of sneakers. This, for him, was the height of disorder.

As he recalls it, Steve Jobs lived in the middle of emptiness. “Not chic minimalism,” he states. “Rustic, rather. There was just nothing. A couch, three armchairs, a coffee table in the living room… Nothing.” In the biography that he devoted to the Californian inventor ( Steve Jobs , JC Lattes, 2011), Walter Isaacson also describes a man who was “so demanding with furniture” that his homes were empty. Before the one that Philippe Starck visited, he did nonetheless own a fourteen-room hacienda . For the house in Palo Alto, bought after his marriage to Laurene Powell in 1997, Jobs had to force himself to set up a minimum level of comfort—beds for a start—basic requirements for a family with three children (Reed, Erin and Eve). His character, sustained by Oriental philosophy was marked by austerity and bareness. On this point, the two men were in sync. “I’ve tried to be inspired by the Asian idea that emptiness is more important than fullness.” he wrote in Starck explications . Hence, the famous transparent chair he designed in 1998, and named The Marie, that is introduced as an “almost perfect object.” Just as the work that culminated in the birth of Venus tried to reach the “elegance of the minimal” according to Philippe Starck

Between April 2007 and the fall of 2011 (Steve Jobs died on October 5th, 2011), the Starcks travelled to Palo Alto one Sunday a month, usually with Thierry Gaugain—“my right arm, an exceptional character,” states the designer. Each session lasted twelve almost uninterrupted hours. The work was done on a coffee table, their backs bent, their noses only three feet above the floor. That is how it was. A torment for the bon vivant Philippe Starck, the usual posture for the ascetic Steve Jobs, invariably dressed in the black turtlenecks designed for him by Issey Miyake. It never occurred to the billionaire to even offer them a drink. “A large window hung above the space where we used to work,” recalls Starck. “We were literally cooking. From time to time Laurene would look in, “Have you offered them something to drink?” He would then return with a glass of water. There was never any food in his kitchen. Other than once when we ate together.” Starck remembers their host barely touched the dishes. Apart from his strict and hardcore vegan nutritional fads and phobias, Jobs was already gravely ill, cancer had been eating away at him since 2003. The Starcks say that each time they hugged him, they had the feeling that they would soon be holding nothing but a sheet of paper in their arms. “It still makes me tear up,” the decorator says—and while he easily draws the picture of an “poser," or "a show off", his eyes do, in fact, fill with tears at the memory.

A POT OF HONEY EVERY YEAR

In his conversations with Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs told the story of his yacht’s creation stating that Philippe Starck simply “helped” him design its interior design. It would be an understatement to say the latter did not appreciate this delegation. He considers himself the true parent of this floating unidentified object made of aluminum and glass, with its perfectly flat teak bridges and a beveled prow. If he is speaking—“for the first and the last time,” he emphasizes,—about his work on this project, and his relationship with Jobs, it is not only to provide “ a more nuanced analysis” of the strange client who commissioned it, but also, in great part, to set the record straight.

For him, there are two important facts that must be remembered. The first is that he, Philippe Starck, was chosen out of everyone else by the great man to bring his nautical dream into material existence. He recalls an anecdote told by Steve Jobs : “Every year we go on vacation on my friend Larry Ellison’s boat [the other Silicon Valley genius, founder of Oracle, according to Forbes in 2013 the world’s fifth richest man, is a sailing fanatic]. And every year, I say to myself, I too should have a boat built. But I don’t do it. Two years ago, I decided I was going to go for it. I looked at everything, asked everyone, and came to the conclusion that only one person can do it: you.” Even with an ego inflated with helium, how can one not keel over at such praise? “It was more than an honor,” Starck says, “a sacrament.” No doubt he means a consecration. Liturgical words are omnipresent in the mouth of this claimed atheist. During our conversation, he later invoked the “philosophical communion” of two souls in love with perfection.

So, Super Starck left their first meeting entranced. Galvanized by the confidence the most demanding of clients has placed in him. “He was giving me carte blanche, in some way.” The following night, in Los Angeles, he says he was struck by inspiration. Here, the second important fact, “I designed it all—all, all, all, in one and a half hours. The whole thing was wrapped up. I work extremely quickly.” Under what circumstances? “I was in bed. My wife was sleeping next to me. Los Angeles reminded me of Steve, Steve sailing… I said to myself, “Hang on, I’m going to draw it.” Jobs had given him very simples rules to work with. The length of the hull : 82 meters exactly. The number of passengers: “Family and crew. A total of six rooms, all of them identical.” And above all, one requirement: silence. “Steve wanted to be sure that the teenagers could be set up in the front of the boat when he was at the back and vice-versa. He was obsessed with silence. In his home, children did not make noise, nor the dog, nor his wife… no one made any noise, ever.”

Even on July 11th, 2008, the day the world discovered the iPhone 3G, the little house remained preternaturally calm. Starck remembers being the bewitched witness of this moment . “The entire world was in an uproar, people were standing in line for hours, in front of stores. It was the greatest launch of all time [barely three days later, Apple announced it had sold over a million units], the greatest investment and he barely seemed to register it. Not a single phone call made or received. Wow! That's true aristocracy in organization and mastery of self.”

At the next meeting, initially planned as the second contact between them, Starck arrived “with all the drawings.” He was carrying a large suitcase—“1.2 meters, 1.3 meters,” he deems—that contained the mock up of the future yacht. After a moment of perplexity, Jobs was wonderstruck and supposedly exclaimed: “It’s more than I could never [sic] imagine.” Starck’s freeform translation: “The world’s most powerful man, known as being the most intransigent, incapable of saying thank you or bravo, was telling us, “This is beyond all my dreams.””

Incredible indeed. Jobs’ biography, that was published after his death, underscores the genius’ versatility, his disingenuousness, his propensity to humiliate, to be obnoxious with his most faithful friends and collaborators—in short, to burn everything he adored. Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, or John Sculley, the historical CEO of the Apple company, paid the price. “He could be charming with those he detested, just as he could be detestable with those he loved.” writes Isaacson. Had their collaboration lasted longer, perhaps Philippe Starck too would have had to suffer Steve Jobs’ moods. When I suggested this hypothesis, he frowned. “I’m not sure about that,” he answered me, “He liked us. Through this boat, we came to be among the three or four friends that really mattered to him.” As proof of this, he offers the fact that every year, the California billionaire would send a pot of honey from his own hives. And that he sometimes expressed a touching preoccupation for to the young couple he and Jasmine formed. On the fated day, when in religious silence, the plans drawn by the decorator were “scanned and rescanned,” examined from every angle by Jobs in the course of a few minutes, he says he only heard him utter four “very pleasing” sentences. The first was, “Are you going to get married?” Answer: “Maybe.” The second: “Are you planning to have children?” An even more elliptical answer, “Euh…” “I knew it, I was telling Laurene,” he had smilingly answered. And the last: “Very well, carry on like this. See you next month.” For Starck, this too is a point of pride: “I don’t believe he’d ever experienced it in his life. We’re used to it: in general, people don’t talk, they find whatever is being presented to them to be very fine. But coming from him—especially when we learned in the book, after his death, the way he treated others—it was stunning.”

Philippe Starck admits, nevertheless, to having first-hand experienced the down side of this 'detail freak'(dixit his autobiography).The four years that followed the initial approval consisted of a millimeter by millimeter examination of the plans. “In order to achieve the height of intelligence in everything,” explains the designer rather cryptically. According to him, nothing was modified of his initial drawings, but everything was revisited. “With Thierry Gaugain, we reinvented marine technology, no less,” he says. “Nothing like it had been undertaken, not since the dawn of time. Still, the client argued about every detail, and for Starck it sometimes went “beyond the annoying.” “I don't want to sound pretentious,” he says, “but we are professionals. We have designed rockets [for Virgin Galactic], motorcycles [for Aprilia], electric cars, boats… When we present a solution, we know it’s the right one. With Thierry Gaugain, we would float him flurries of ideas at each meeting, and for his part, he’d answer, “No, no, no.” Until the moment when, because he had in mind the shipyard's schedule, he would pick an idea and say, “I’ve got it, this is what we’ll do.” And, to our shattered stupefaction, we would realize it was the solution we had presented him with the previous month or two years prior. “But Steve…” It was to no avail, he had appropriated it.”

It seems this was Steve Jobs' way. Those close to him had resigned themselves to referring to his “distortion of reality” syndrome. The most enormous distortion in Starck’s eyes was the one forming the basis of the “lie” perpetrated about him in Jobs' talks with Isaacson that served primarily as material for his hagiography (before devoting himself to the founder of Apple, this ex-head of CNN and Time had written biographies of two monumental figures in science: Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin). On page 595 of the book, he writes, “To outfit the interior, he hired Philippe Starck, the French designer, who would come regularly to Palo Alto to work on the plans.” Starck is still indignant. “He must have said that two months before he died,” he snaps, ”How could he still want to lie to serve his own glory? So powerful was his ego, such was the distortion of reality within him that he was incapable of recognizing the work of another person.” In the version of the story according to Starck, that he presents as the only acceptable one, beginning with the second meeting, “not a single wall, not the smallest detail of the hull” underwent any changes from what he had imagined in his bed in Los Angeles. “We looked at everything during the course of four years, but nothing shifted by even a tenth of a millimeter.” Seated next to him, Jasmine too sighs at the ingratitude of “Steve.” “And yet he displayed such great confidence in us.”

A PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECT

On a Sunday in 2009, the year of his liver transplant, Jobs told them, “I’m going to disappear for three months, I will call you on such and such a day at 10 o’clock.” On the said day and hour, he asked them to come back to Palo Alto. A reunion. “We were very moved,” recalls Starck. “He hated personal questions, but at the time, after such a resurrection, I was compelled to ask him, “Have you thought about your life? Are there things you would like to change?” He answered, “Nothing. I would not want a different one. I have had a great deal of time to reflect, I have thought about the boat. There are, today, three things that matter to me: my family, my company and you guys.” He was talking about Jasmine and I! He added, “My only problem is that you don’t live on my street.” Moved, the Starcks set to work, bending over the coffee table. Five years later, in his immaculate office, Starck proclaims this with a bit of exaltation, “There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task. There'll never again be so much creativity, rigor, and above all philosophy, applied to a material creation. It was not a yacht that Steve and I were constructing, we were embarked on a philosophical action, implemented according to a quasi-religious process. We formed a single brain with four lobes.”

One might wonder what exactly an 82-meter philosophical object, capable of crossing all the world’s seas, looks like. “When we talked, it was not to decide whether it was better to use aluminum or steel. The questions that arose were of an ethical order. As for the details, try to imagine the height of minimalism.” Where specifics are concerned, that is not a lot to go with. At most, the designer proffers that the cockpit was “a piece of curved glass, 23 meters long, 6 centimeters thick,”—a prowess whose materialization was entrusted to the chief engineer of the Apple Stores. He even refuses to confirm the description of the control panel equipped with seven 27” iMac screens, released in 2012 at the time of the ship’s launch, upon its completion by the Royal de Vries ship yard in the south-west of Amsterdam (this is also true of a few other particularities, like the presence of a large terrace with an integrated Jacuzzi, and avant-gardist processes for aeration, and completely silent electronically controlled blinds.) “There are just commands, but there is no complex home automation. Each person would have their own portable controls with them.” he explained in Mers & Bateaux . Photographs of this floating building were taken at its launch from the Dutch shipyard, but no views of the interior have ever been communicated. “The philosophy was the same as for the exterior: the least of everything,” confides Starck. With a reproachful pout, he adds, “In Steve’s lifetime, I had formulated recommendations for the furnishings, but Laurene put in the furniture she wanted. I’m not there to interfere in these people’s taste.”

Starck also refused to confirm the cost of this prodigious vessel of the seas. The press has mentioned 100 million euros. He neither says yes nor no and dodges the question with this circumlocution: “Its price is totally normal relative to the work undertaken and to its religious quality.” We’ll have to wait for Laurene Jobs or her children to sell the yacht to hope to learn its worth—and even then, there’s nothing to say the transaction figures would be divulged. As for the rest, it seems unlikely that the inheritors should choose one day to get rid of what was the last dream of the founder of Apple. “I know it’s possible that I may die and leave Laurene with a half-finished boat,” he confided to Isaacson a few months before his passing, “but I must continue. Otherwise, it would be admitting that I am going to die.”

The Venus sailed, granted. Yet its launch was not without turmoil. When he heard the men at the Royal de Vries shipyard usurp the boat’s paternity in front of Jobs’ family, collaborators and friends, Philippe Starck flew into a rage. “It was a good shipyard, but with people whose moral fiber was particularly elastic and who had the staggering nerve to say that they had designed this extraordinary boat, the most inventive in the world,” he says indignantly. “I haver never experienced in my entire life such violence through a lie.” Jasmine interrupts him to elaborate on the scene, “You said, “You've got to be kidding!” and we took off.” No doubt, his heart was still raging when on the following December 21st, the French decorator ordered the yacht seized in the port of Aaalsmeer.” He invoked a lawsuit brought for two unpaid invoices. Indeed, Steve Jobs’ inheritors refused to pay the 3 million euros that are owed to Starck on a total fee of 9 million euros—they consider the $6 million already paid match the percentage agreed upon in advance.

“Some lawyer probably wanted to look clever,” the decorator murmurs today. At the time, he was forced to admit no written document formalized the financial aspect of his agreement with Jobs. His representative in Holland explained that the two men were “very close during the period of the creation of the design,” and during the construction, adding that it was “in part why no formal work agreement had been drawn up.” Three days later, a compromise was reached between the two parties’ lawyers and the seizure order was lifted. The Venus embarked a cargo ship not long thereafter, headed for the United States. No image of Steve Jobs aboard it or overseeing its construction has ever been shown—no one even knows if he was able to see the boat with his own eyes. Philippe Starck, for his part, has never seen it sail.

Par Norine Raja

Par Audrey Bellaiche

Par Bénédicte Burguet

Par Valentine Servant-Ulgu

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Steve Jobs' yacht designer has created the world's first private luxury train that could cost more than $300 million - see inside

French designer Thierry Gaugain has designed what he calls the "world's first private luxury train."

The "palace on rails" is covered in smart glass and could cost over $300 million to build.

Gaugain previously designed Apple cofounder and former CEO Steve Jobs' 260-foot yacht Venus.

See more stories on Insider's business page .

We've all heard of private yachts and private jets. But now the French designer Thierry Gaugain has designed what he calls the "world's first private luxury train."

Gaugain is a prolific designer who has worked across multiple fields, designing furniture, glasses, motorbikes, and private planes.

Gaugain has also designed yachts and helped create Apple cofounder and former CEO Steve Jobs' 260-foot yacht Venus.

But now, for the first time, Gaugain has decided to create a design for a private luxury train, in part because "everyone loved trains in their childhood," he told Insider. "It's an old dream coming through," he added.

Yes, he could have designed an Amtrak train or a passenger train. But why do that when you can create the "ultimate way to travel" in luxury.

We all know the expression "it's about the journey, not the destination." Well, that was the intention of the G Train.

"During my years of working on travel concepts, I fine-tuned all the ideas of journeys, how to move, and how to discover the world," Gaugain said. "It appeared to me that a train for a one unique owner, [like] a yacht, was a very good way to reinvent the idea of journey."

Like other methods of transportation Gaugain has designed, the G Train was created to be a place to live. This was done by integrating technology, art, and light: "This train is meant to be a stage changing all the time by mechanical or digital means," he said.

It's not a hotel on wheels - it's a "palace on rails," Gaugain said.

"Our aim for this G Train is to design a palace on rails that could look like a snake under the sun or a night bird," he said.

Now let's take a peek around the 14-car, 1,312-foot-long train.

Gaugain imagines an owner of this train would be someone who is "certainly exceptional, maybe someone looking for a new chapter of his life."

According to the designer, everyone involved in the project - from himself to Swiss train builders and French glass makers - worked for several years to "ensure the feasibility" of the G Train.

The G Train could hit almost 99 mph and operate on railways in places like the US, Europe, and Russia.

The train's owner could host family gatherings, business partners, and partygoers.

One of the most noticeable features of the train concept is its smart-glass covering, which could switch from totally transparent to a gold-toned opacity with a push of a button.

Creating a glass-encased train - we're talking almost 37,674 square feet of glass - would allow the train's owner to bring the outdoors into the train.

So light plays a central role in the design of the train. Natural light through the glass walls and digital lighting systems help set the mood on board.

The G Train's 14 cars would have a variety of rooms and uses, from bedroom suites to a garden and an art gallery.

There would even be enough room to accommodate 18 overnight guests - not including any of the crew - in the VIP suites.

The owner's sleeping quarters and living room cars would be separate from these guest suites and come with features like a family dining room, office, bathtub, and large bedroom.

The train would also have a "social center" with winged terraces on both sides of the car. This space would be perfect for parties, shows, or dinners.

But if the owner wanted some peace and tranquility instead, they could head to the garden car, which is customizable based on the season.

There would also be a car dedicated to toy storage, but we're not talking about the board games and stuffed animals. Toys in this instance means off-road vehicles, motorbikes, and flying cars.

The G Train is customizable, which means there's an option to turn one of the cars into a swimming pool or a catwalk for a fashion show.

Gaugain estimated building all this could land at around $300 million, even upward of $350 million. Yes, that's a large range, but that's because the exact pricing hinges on all the amenities and artwork the G Train's owner might want.

The train would then take over two years to build.

This cost and time may seem like a turnoff to prospective buyers, but Gaugain said the train would be a "vehicle for the future" because of its sustainability and technology-forward amenities.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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