Estate of the Day

Singer Pat Boone is taking to the sea. Utopia Residences announced that Boone and his family havejust acquired a luxury apartment onboard the new residential ocean liner, Utopia. The Utopia will circle the globe and visit cities hosting sporting and cultural events such as the Cannes Film Festival, Monte Carlo Grand Prix, The Olympics, Carnaval, Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival, Melbourne Cup and other worldwide events. Pat Boone said, "I am excited to take my family to these world class events on the world's most luxurious ship. Everyone in my family is thrilled about having future family reunions on the Utopia and traveling the world without leaving our home on the sea." 

The ship has not officially launched its international sales of its 200 residences yet. As we reported last year, the project is a $1.1 billion super cruiser being built in Korea.The 1,000-foot, 105,000-ton ship will be completed in 2013. The 200 floating apartments will range from 1,400 to 6,600 square feet and last year we heard that they had a starting price of $3.6 million. There will also be a 204-room hotel on board, a fact that makes it different from a similar concept, The World of Residensea ship which is all owned units.

Utopia Residences has opened a showroom on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and is also selling through Douglas Elliman in New York City. The Utopia venture is being financed by a majority of New Mexico investors and the project's lead investors are the Chant and Robb families. David Robb serves as Utopia's chairman while Chris Chant is its president. Frank Carlucci, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, is also involved and the project is backed by Frontier Group, a private equity firm founded by Carlucci.