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Yacht designer Patrick Knowles is "always on the prowl for inspiration," be it from the land, sea, or sky. As a young boy growing up in the Bahamas, Patrick was "always sketching" and given his childhood backdrop, many of his earliest sketches drew inspiration from the aquamarine waters around him. It is fitting, then, that Patrick Knowles' design career has spanned many industries, but rested–and bloomed–within the business of designing homes for the sea. With the past thirty-four years spent designing custom megayacht, superyacht, and aircra interiors, Patrick Knowles began his career in the industry by first attending design school in Ft. Lauderdale. Aer graduation, Patrick began working in every field of design imaginable–"on commercial design, industrial design, hospitality design, residential design, motorcoach design." As he explains, "When I graduated, my mindset was very curious with design and I wanted to explore." Aer spending time doing just that, Patrick was asked to design an aircra "and that was very prolific and [I] went on to produce quite a few aircra." It seemed to be an interesting twist of fate, as Patrick's boyhood dream was to follow in his eldest brother's footsteps and become a pilot. e youngest of seven boys, Patrick has early memories of spending time in planes. "My older brother was a commercial pilot and aer school, he'd pick me up and take me on the airplanes," Patrick recalls. "From a very early age, I was enamored with aircra. I got to see the engine, wheel wells, luggage compartments; [I was] introduced to it formidably at a very early age." But aer Patrick's oldest brother miraculously survived a plane crash, their mother put an end to his dreams of the sky by saying, "no other son of mine is going to be a pilot." ankfully, as Patrick puts it, "the dream never le my heart" and upon entering his career, he was able to design aircra interiors for private, VIP, and Heads of State sectors. Aer launching Patrick Knowles Designs with a basis in the aviation industry, it wasn't long before Patrick branched out into yachting. Aer all, the sea has always been like a second home. Patrick's father was, as he puts it, "very much a man of the sea," a boatsman who oen took his sons out on the water. "We would joke that he would bleed seawater and not blood," Patrick chuckles. And while he spent most of his adolescence sketching "anything that moved," Patrick shares that "it wasn't until I entered the design industry did my horizons open to superyachts." In the business of custom yacht and airplane designs since 1989, Patrick Knowles Designs has been the recipient of the World Superyacht Awards and Showboats International Design Awards. With so many completed projects under his belt, I asked Patrick where he draws his creative inspiration from. "A lot of inspiration I get is from nature, the natural world, trees, terrain, landscapes, there's so much to gain from that, from an organic standpoint," he shares. Take, for example, Patrick's inspiration for a yacht's sky lounge. He described being drawn to the different textures and colors that can be seen when flying over shallow waters and "seeing the dris in the sand." ose natural elements were translated through the colors, textures, and patterns used for the entire sky lounge of a 63-meter yacht he designed. For a Manhattan duplex on the 60th floor, Patrick craed his vision aer the hues and mood of Central Park in late September. PHOTO CREDITS: RYAN COHEN RODDY GRIMES WILLIAM SMITH KRISTINA STROBEL VUE ON | LIFESTYLE VUENJ.COM 37

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