Smooth-Talking Businessman Offers Dreams for Sail

The Dream Maker will tell you that he’s selling a life style, a certain joie de vivre, elusive, romantic, sexy, sprinkled with salt.

I’ll tell you that he’s selling boats.

The Dream Maker will tell you that he doesn’t push his clients, even though he works on commission, that fulfilling nautical dreams takes time and that even the rich don’t spend this kind of money without first falling in love.

I’ll tell you that The Dream Maker, who works out of Lido Village, must be good at seduction.

Boats are big in Newport, and small too, but it’s the big ones, docked behind the Balboa Bay Club, or very subtly for sale just up the road at Ardell, on Pacific Coast Highway, that mostly catch my eye. These boats tend to block out the sun.

And now that the oil spill quarantine has been lifted, you can see them on the horizon once again, churning up a mean wake.

I’ve been wondering who buys these vessels and wanting to know why. I’ve always thought that owning a yacht must be some sort of primal instinct of the rich. It must kick in somewhere after escrow closes on the weekend house or when there’s no more room left to park in the garage.

That’s where the Dream Maker, whose business cards also list the name Bill Redfield, says he can draw me a map. He knows boats, he says, and he knows rich. Would, for him, that the two shall meet.

In Newport alone, there are scores of brokers like Redfield--the competition is fierce--but something about the Dream Maker’s laid-back style, slouchy in a cable-knit sweater, from Connecticut to California casual, makes me want to sit down and talk.

Soon, I find myself dreaming.

“Most of the people who buy a boat, they have an emotional attachment,” he tells me. “There is a certain romance and a love affair that goes with it. . . . My philosophy is I do not want to sell a particular boat to a client. I search for a boat to fall in love with. I consider myself more of a purchasing agent than a salesman. I help the guy to fulfill his dream.”

This, of course, is Dream Maker talk. It floats. It’s part of the yachting mystique that Redfield likes to package, play off of, dangle before those disposed to drop, say, $100,000, or maybe as much as $15 million, on a toy.

I think he’s practicing with me.

“And we do custom work as well,” he goes on. “We work with several yards. It will take about $20,000 to $35,000 for the naval architect to build a model. Then the buyer can bring that home, play with it, massage it.”

But Redfield warns of rough seas. He places ads in yachting magazines that are calming, Zen-like. They aim to comfort seasick psyches.

“Today’s business stress requires a counterpart of relaxation for effective life balance,” reads one. “The lure of the sea brings more and more people to the local marina seeking the perfect boat. . . . (But) finding the perfect boat can be difficult, time consuming, expensive and frustrating. A poor choice can have ongoing debilitating financial and emotional effects. The solution: The Dream Maker .”

Yet even in the eye of the storm, Redfield radiates low key. This, he says, is the Newport way, and Southern California in general. You don’t pressure. There’s no hard sell. The rich resent it.

Still, there are ways. The taste of salt in the air, the soothing slap of water against the hull, the look of admiration and lust on the faces of those left in your wake, these are the things that the Dream Maker sells.

“Frequently egos get involved,” he tells me. “The kind of boat that someone buys will have a lot to do with who they are buying for, who they want to impress.”

And, Redfield says, it can take a lot of time before the anchor finally drops. Prospects abound. He says he’s got several hundred of those. These are the ones he calls on the phone, schmoozes with, takes to lunch and shows lots and lots of boats.

Buyers are more precious, many of whom prefer to pay in cash.

Not long ago, Redfield spent a couple of months with a lottery winner, a guy who was splitting $54 million, who never did end up buying a boat.

“That’s the way it goes,” Redfield says. “He’s a nice guy. We’re still friends.”

Somehow, this is what I expect to hear the Dream Maker say. No harsh words in dreamland. Never burn any bridges. You never know when somebody else’s ship might come in.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.