boatinternational.com • 05 2019casing manufacturer to create ceilings
that seamlessly incorporate all manner of
lights, vents, spa systems and more.
“My granddad was making airplanes
during the Second World War, because
you couldn’t get aluminum domestically
then,” Rasmussen explains. “He had
people from the factory making tools at
night, so that as soon as the war was over
he could go straight into production.”
Launching with a range of cigarette
cases, matchbook cases and women’s
jewelry in Neiman Marcus stores, his
grandfather went on to fine-tune the
aluminum colorizing process for which
Neal Feay has become known. “As a child,
the business was always available, but
there was no pressure,” he says. “I was
silk-screening parts when I was eight
years old.” For a brief period, Rasmussen
considered going into the art world, but it
was too risky, “and there’s too much
nonsense,” he adds.
When he inherited Neal Feay after
college, it was a successful but “kind of
boring” company that specialized in
cosmetic work for super-high-end audio
equipment casings. So how did it go on to
build designer console tables, art
installations and superyacht platforms?
“That was very specifically driven by the
economic meltdown of 2008,” Rasmussen
says. “Our business just straight-up
disappeared.” The first thing his team
did was revisit those projects they had
previously turned down, while
Rasmussen began setting his sights ondesigns beyond their current remit. “By
that point, I was dying to do something
new,” he admits, “but frankly for a long
time what we were doing was incredibly
lucrative. It was hard to say ‘Let’s go out
and bash our heads against the wall,’ when
the fish had been jumping in the boat.”
Once the studio was back on solid
ground, Rasmussen contacted some of
the world’s best designers and architects.
He asked them if they might be interested
in collaborating, and was pleasantly
surprised by their enthusiastic reception.
Today, he’s working with Rémi Tessier
to create bold new furniture, fittings and
portholes on a number of superyachts,
and has a business jet with designer
Thierry Gauguin in the works. He’s also
working with Vita Yachts and designerBorromeo & De Silva to manufacture a
custom add-on bathing platform for its
electric tender, the Vita X, which was
unveiled at this year’s Salone del Mobile
in Milan. “Alex is doing things that no one
else is doing,” says Vita’s founder and
chairman Stewart Wilkinson, “and
we’re both trying to bring art, form and
function together while respecting the
environment around us.”
The platform will also be on show at the
Monaco Yacht Show in September, along
with a range of outdoor furniture for
Sutherland that “will use yacht-related
design language.” For Rasmussen, having
spent three years visiting the event as an
outsider, it will be thrilling to have some
work of his own to present to the yachting
community. “It’ll be nice to be able to say
‘Go and look over there, go see that.’”
Meanwhile, his enduring love affair
with yachts is ever-increasing. “I think
anything that moves through water has a
mesmerizing natural beauty,” he says.
“Plus, I’m just in love with the ocean.
Swim in a pool? Oh god, no. Why would
you do that when we have waves?”
nealfeay.com; with thanks to theRosewood
London hotel, rosewoodhotels.comB“Aluminum is
incredibly hard-wearing – that tiller
we made in 2001
looks exactlythe same today
as it did on theday we made it”
Left: Rasmussen at Neal
Feay’s offices in Santa
Barbara. He’s the third
generation of his family
to run the business.
Below: the 32ft electric
Vita X that Rasmussen
has been working on124