THE LIFE AQUATIC

For designer Charlotte Biltgen and her family,

- IAN PHILLIPS

Shortly after they met in June 2005, French designer Charlotte Biltgen and her husband Cédric made a trip to a boat-yard in Burgundy. It was there that an industrial barge he'd bought a few months earlier was in the embryonic stages of being transformed into their future home. “It was very rudimentary,” recalls Charlotte. “There was only the hull and the bargeman’s quarters. But, I was imme-diately seduced. I love unusual projects.”

Once the major structural work was complete, Cédric sailed the vessel through a total of 169 locks to its cur-rent location on the banks of the Île de Puteaux to the west of Paris, which was already home to a budding houseboat community. It took another two years to make the interior livable.

Cédric caught the “barge bug” after spending weekends on the boat of a friend in his youth. “While the rest of my pals were living in tiny apartments, he had nearly 2,000 feet of space and could organize great parties,” he recalls. Serendipitously, Charlotte’s parents had lived on the water before her birth. “I recall my father telling stories of their bohemian life aboard,” she says. “I didn’t necessarily choose to follow in their foot-steps. I chose Cédric, and the boat was part of the package.”

Measuring nearly 130 feet in length and 16.5 feet wide, it now bears the name