PHOTOGRAPHY: STUART PEARCE
FEBRUARY 2018OWNERS’ CLUBAnd they warn sincerely about the dangers of
consuming tequila irresponsibly, disappointed by the
reputation their national drink has acquired in
American student bars. This is not billionaire behavior- but then Grossman’s role in the business has not
required fangs and talons.
“We had a rule in the family that at the age of 65 we
made room for the next generation, and I did,
I stuck to that,” says Grossman, who after university
worked at Procter & Gamble and started his own
business, before returning to the fold. “I stayed on the
board a couple of years, but we’ve got professional
people running the business and have for almost four
generations. So we all have to do our own thing and
find our own pursuit of happiness.”
For him, that happiness has always been found
at sea. “We lived on the water (when I was a child)
in Tampico, Mexico – the Gulf Coast. We all had
little outboard motor boats that we used to go out
and ski with and stuff, but never a proper boat. They
were little skiffs.”
It was here, as a child, that Bruce met his little sister’s
best friend, Elsa. “I hated both of them,” says
Grossman. Elsa confirms that the feeling was mutual.
Relations thawed as they grew older and their families
remained close, but Elsa’s parents moved to Spain and
the pair made their own lives. “When we were grown-
ups I started realizing that this was quite the woman,”
recalls Bruce. “I chased her for a long time. When she
said no... I wasn’t used to having no in my life.
I had a very privileged life and
childhood.” Eventually, however, she
relented, and the couple’s grown-up
children are now one family. The yacht
Forever One is named for Elsa,
Grossman’s forever one. “I made some
serious Brownie points on that,” he
says quietly.
But it took Grossman some time to
get that first “proper” boat he’d always
wanted – a Mangusta 72 in 1991. “It had
two bathrooms, a little bitty closet, one
guest cabin – the other one we gave to
the captain, he lived on board – and
our chef almost had to sleep standing up. We lived on
the boat four months out of the year,” he says. “We’d
come over (from Mexico) in the summertime, get on
our little bucket and blow around. We couldn’t go very
far, so we’d go up and down the Med – Portofino, Saint-
Tropez and across to Sardinia. That was it.”
Grossman moved up in the Mangustas, in the
process becoming good friends with the Balducci
family, which owns Mangusta builder Overmarine. “In
those days – the late ’80s, early ’90s – they traded you
up,” says Grossman, of the days when young Wall
Street types were snapping up fast boats at breakneck
speed. “Mangustas were in such high demand – so, we
used that 72ft for two or three years and then they made
us an offer. We got the same money we paid and moved
up to a 92ft. And right in the middle of the 92 build – it
was almost finished – some guy came along and offered
us a million more than we paid for it. So we said OK
and traded up to a 105.”They did take delivery of that
boat, but soon moved up to a 130ft –
a one-off Grossman designed with
the help of the Balducci family. “We
used it for about five years – we
would go further, up to Turkey and
Greece, watching the weather a lot
because it didn’t have stabilizers.
When we had a window we’d blow.
We would be going pretty fast.”
The next and most significant
boat signaled a change of gear. “We
were getting a little bit old and
didn’t want to go fast anymore, we wanted something
more comfortable,” he says.
It took the Grossmans a while to work out exactly
what that comfort should consist of, trawling boat
shows until they were sure that their dream yacht didn’t
already exist. And starting from scratch wasn’tBelow: Bruce
(second from left)
named the yacht
Forever One
for his wife, Elsa
(center). Bottom:
Bruce’s one-off
Mangusta 13059