Obituary: Entrepreneur Stuart Young, first to raise the alarm about the ferry Wāhine
Vanessa Young
05:00, Apr 10 2021
Stuart Young at his 80th birthday in 2015.
SUPPLIED
Stuart Young at his 80th birthday in 2015.
Stuart Young, startup entrepreneur; b 25/06/1935; d 17/02/2021
Co-founder and chairman of Interlock Industries, Stuart Young, was the first to raise the alarm about the stricken ferry Wāhine in 1968.
From his home in Breaker Bay, he and his wife, Jenny, saw the ship on the wrong side of Barrett Reef, and moving swiftly sideways.
“She appeared to be coming in straight towards the beach. She was so close she was just a blaze of lights.”
Having lived in Breaker Bay most of his life (initially in a tent while his father built a garage – and then a house – for the family to live in), Stuart was accustomed to southerly gales. He recalled as a child holding on to the guy ropes of the tent to keep it upright in storms.
So he knew just how extraordinary the storm of April 10, 1968, was, with visibility ‘’atrocious’’ and the wind as not howling but ‘’high pitch screaming’’.
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At 6.30am that day, Stuart and Jenny saw the Wāhine in Chaffers Passage, on the Breaker Bay side of the reef, facing the houses (a sight witnessed by many in the Bay but never accepted by the official court of inquiry). It was clear she was in serious trouble and Stuart immediately phoned the police.
Later in the day, Stuart, with his brother Marten, launched their small trailer-sailor at Seatoun beach to try to assist in the rescue efforts. However, the size of the breakers was such that the dinghy was quickly pitchpolled and they were lucky to escape with their lives.
By the time of the Wāhine disaster in 1968, Stuart had co-founded Interlock Industries, a highly successful IP-driven, export-led company based in Wellington between 1961 and 2001 that would go on to be recognised as one of the early success stories of New Zealand manufacturing.
Stuart is described by former business academic and now University of Otago Emeritus Professor Colin Campbell-Hunt as a ‘’precious entrepreneur … who showed that New Zealand could build world-class businesses despite our small size’’.
“There was quite a team of us at Victoria University of Wellington working on outstanding export-successful NZ businesses.
“Interlock was pretty much the first off the block.”
Campbell-Hunt says that through studying firms like Interlock Industries, his colleagues at VUW, Massey and Otago universities were able to develop new theory on the ways that small firms could be competitive in world markets – theory, he points out, that could not exist until people like Stuart showed how it could be done.
Interlock co-founders Ron Davis and Stuart Young receive the Trade Promotion Export Award from deputy prime minister Brian Talboys on August 18, 1976.
Interlock co-founders Ron Davis and Stuart Young receive the Trade Promotion Export Award from deputy prime minister Brian Talboys on August 18, 1976.
He says the company was one of a small number of New Zealand businesses that thrived through the radical restructuring of the economy in the mid-1980s.
“Where so many other firms went to the wall, Interlock took full advantage of the greater freedoms to build a business that was fully competitive with the best that the world could offer.
“His contributions to New Zealand, and our understanding of international business, will always be second to none.“
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In the 1960s and early 1970s the word ‘’startup’’ hadn’t been coined in relation to companies (the word was first used by Forbes magazine to describe a budding company in 1976). But Stuart was already leading Interlock along a highly innovative path towards export.
The company, which started in Stuart’s backyard in 1961, moved to Miramar in 1969 (operating out of buildings now owned by Peter Jackson), with 550 employees across three factories in Miramar, and Auckland.
Interlock was a highly successful partnership between its two co-founders; Ron Davis (the ‘‘inventor’’ – generating new IP) and Stuart, the ‘’marketer’’, who ensured ongoing inventions were patented all over the world so that the company kept ahead of its global competitors through invention and smart marketing.
Each man respected the other’s abilities as being so different to his own, having total confidence in the other’s ability to run his side of the business.
The company invented and exported aluminium window hardware – in particular a new kind of friction stay.
Stuart was highly protective of Interlock’s IP – fighting and winning patent infringement battles in the UK and Japan.
With colleagues from Shibutani, Interlock's distributor in Japan.
With colleagues from Shibutani, Interlock's distributor in Japan.
The company was unusual for its time in other ways too – everyone was on first-name terms, employees were encouraged to make decisions and to raise any matter they wanted, and – most importantly – to be honest with each other.
The company operated a profit-sharing bonus system and a medical insurance scheme, arranged free influenza vaccinations for anyone who wanted them and offered opportunities for staff to train and retrain at all levels.
Tony Gledhill, who joined Interlock as an accountant, and rose to chairman after Stuart retired, said that Stuart was a major reason he stayed on at the company.
“His encouragement for me to complete my university studies was a measure of his character, that he would allow someone to succeed, and would invest in key staff.”
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The ‘corporate philosophy’ was straightforward; stay close to the customers, keep it simple, seek continuous improvement, develop people, work as a team, strive for excellence, and make it fun.
For Stuart, employees were extended family – he would walk around the entire factory every Monday morning, speaking to people individually.
At age 15 Stuart lost his father in the 1951 Wellington to Lyttleton yacht race, giving up his dreams of becoming an architect and leaving school to take up (with his brother) a building apprenticeship to support their mother and younger sister.
Despite the yachting tragedy that took his father, sailing became a huge part of Stuart’s life. He would build the first catamaran in Wellington, and sailed a succession of trailer-sailors and keelers.
With his four children, on one of their many sailing holidays.
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With his four children, on one of their many sailing holidays.
Stuart was hugely family-focused, and holidays centred around yachting. The family sailed to the Pacific and back, twice.
Stuart passed away peacefully on February 17 after a long illness, surrounded by family. He is survived by Jenny – his wife of 59 years – four children, Vanessa, Melanie, Elliott and Oliver, plus grandchildren. He was until recently an active Rotarian, and enjoyed chess and music.
Stuart was also a NZ badminton title-holder, a Fellow of the Institute of Directors in NZ and the NZ Institute of Management, and a director of the Reserve Bank from 1994-99.
Sources: University of Otago Emeritus Professor Colin Campbell-Hunt
Created to Innovate – a History of Interlock Group 1961-2001 (Diane Beaglehole 2001))
Success in New Zealand Business (written by Paul Smith and published by Hodder Moa
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/124779833/obituary--entrepreneur-stuart-young-first-to-raise-the-alarm-about-the-ferry-whine?rm=a
Post by Morrissey Breenhttps://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/snl-colin-jost-duplex-wallace-neff-house-beverly-hills-more-real-estate-news
SNL’s Colin Jost Lists Duplex, a Wallace Neff House for Grabs in Beverly Hills, and More Real Estate News
Here’s everything you need to know now
By Dan Avery
October 27, 2021
From high-profile design commissions to exciting listings, there is always something new happening in the world of real estate. In this roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.
On the Market
Colin Jost lists West Village duplex
Now that he’s a family man, Saturday Night Live’s head writer is ditching his 1,400-square-foot West Village bachelor pad. Colin Jost has listed his Horatio Street garden duplex with Noble Black for $2.5 million, a significant bump from the $1.77 million he paid for it a decade ago.
Dating to 1929, the charming two-bedroom has a cottage-y vibe, with a wood-burning fireplace, French doors, and lots of exposed brick. Outside, a private courtyard patio can convert into an alfresco screening room with a pre-wired projector screen.
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The main floor houses a combined living-dining area and a narrow kitchen with canary-yellow cabinetry and a faience tile backsplash, as well as a guest suite with a claw-foot tub at the foot of the bed. Down a spiral staircase are the main bedroom and a second living room with direct access to the patio.
Jost and superstar wife Scarlett Johansson still have a half-dozen other homes between them, according to Dirt, including two places in the Hamptons and Johansson’s four-bedroom house in pastoral Snedens Landing, New York, where they got married in October 2020.
The real Elm Street house is available just in time for Halloween
1428 North Genesee Avenue might not ring any bells, but the three-bedroom Dutch Colonial is instantly recognizable to horror fans as the façade featured in Wes Craven’s 1984 masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Located in Hollywood’s Spaulding Square neighborhood, the three-bedroom home is listed for $3.25 million with Heather T. Roy and Learka Bosnak of Douglas Elliman.
Lacking palm trees and other coastal clues, Spaulding Square has often been used as a shooting location to depict areas outside Southern California. Constructed in 1919, the Genesee Avenue home made the perfect stand-in for 1428 Elm Street in Nightmare’s fictional Springwood, Ohio. It was last purchased in 2013 for $2.1 million by Hustlers director Lorene Scafaria.
Although the home got a major renovation in the mid 2000s, the façade looks much like it did when Freddy Krueger came knocking. The bright red front door has been painted black, but the portico is still covered in those iconic green shingles. That’s where the similarities end, though. “Inside, it’s a beautiful traditional-style space with a modern twist,” Bosnak told the Los Angeles Times.
On the main level, walnut flooring weaves through oversized archways to a retro kitchen, grand main suite, and a terrace leading outside to the swimming pool and landscaped grounds. Across the property, a detached guest house has its own kitchen, designer bathroom, and pergola-topped patio.
Bosnak and Roy are leaning into the property’s spooky history: They’ll be giving out candy to trick-or-treaters, and bids on the house are due by midnight on Halloween.
The Elm Street property.
Photo: Anthony Barcelo/Douglas Elliman
The Western White House lists for $25 million
Live out your presidential fantasy in this 24-room neoclassical Georgian Colonial in Hillsborough, California. It’s nicknamed the “Western White House” for its striking similarity to the first family’s D.C. digs—from the portico’s majestic white columns to the rose garden and a library inspired by the Oval Office. The palatial 27,000-square-foot residence, about half an hour from the heart of San Francisco, sits on 2.9 acres and boasts 11 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and four powder rooms, plus a wine cellar, gym, movie theater, and a statue-studded outdoor pool.
The mansion’s history is as fascinating as the property itself: Built in 1878 by cattle rancher and developer William Henry Howard, it was quickly bought by Charles Frederick Crocker, heir to the Central Pacific Railroad fortune. After Crocker’s death in 1897, his family sold the house, but not the land, to a local contractor who moved the entire house about half a mile away, where it stands today.
George Hearst, son of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, snatched up the property in 1930 and tapped architect Julia Morgan to give it a total overhaul. The first woman admitted to the esteemed Beaux Arts de Paris, Morgan previously designed the iconic Hearst Castle in San Simeon.
Providian Financial’s former CEO Shailesh Mehta purchased the house in 1997 for just over $6 million and has spent the last quarter century raising his family there. Beyond renovating the pool, updating the interior mechanics, and building two master suites at either end of the house, Mehta has left the property fairly intact. “The house was in beautiful shape,” he told Bloomberg. “There was no need to touch the structure. It was built in an era when houses were made to last.” With their kids now grown, though, Mehta and his wife decided it was time to downgrade to something more manageable.
Jennifer Gilson and Sophia Waldman of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty hold the $25 million listing.
The so-called Western White House.
Photo: Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty
Wallace Neff house listed in exclusive Trousdale Estates
A grand home designed by midcentury Hollywood architect Wallace Neff, who created houses for Cary Grant and Charlie Chaplin and pioneered Spanish colonial-revival influences in Southern California, is on the market for $23.9 million.
Located in Beverly Hills’s exclusive Trousdale Estates, the home has five en-suite bedrooms, including a main suite with a fireplace and French doors leading to a private backyard. Outside, lush trees and beautifully landscaped grounds frame covered loggias, a pool and grotto, and a built-in barbecue. Built in 1958, 419 Robert Lane is one of only 11 properties on the street.
It’s being sold by apparel-industry executive Frank Zarabi, who grew up in the house. Rochelle Maize of Nourmand and Associates has the listing.
419 Robert Lane.
Photo: Noel Kleinman of Noel Kleinman Real Estate Photography
Model Units
A high-in-the-sky apartment from an AD100 designer
Interior designer Kelly Behun has unveiled the model residence she designed in the Shop Architects-designed tower at 111 West 57th Street, the second tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere.
Priced at $19.5 million, the full-floor Tower Residence 34 offers nearly 4,500 square feet of living space, including three bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. The apartment’s Great Room is a true focal point, according to sales director Amy Williamson, with custom furnishings, a sculptural dining banquette, and artwork selected by renowned curator Valérie Cueto.
Behun says her design was inspired by the residence’s stunning views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. “You will see that there are echoes of the neighboring gilded roof in the living room’s custom chandelier, that the green silk velvet on the sofa harmonizes perfectly with the trees in the park, and the dusty lavenders and grays that evoke both the sky and skyline that this home feels so much a part of,” she said in a statement.
Prices at 111 West 57th Street range from $16 million to more than $66 million, with closings anticipated to commence later this year.
The model unit by Kelly Behun.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
Milestones
Sales launch for the priciest pad in Brooklyn
Sales have launched at Olympia Dumbo, the tallest residential building in the waterfront Brooklyn neighborhood. Fortis Property Group is developing the 33-story tower, featuring sail-like architecture by Hill West and interiors from Workstead, with just 76 residences, ranging from one- to five-plus-bedroom apartments.
If the developers meet their premium, Olympia will also be Brooklyn’s most expensive property: The building’s total sellout is nearly $375 million, according to The Real Deal, averaging a hair under $5 million per apartment or $2,203 per square foot—the highest in the borough, according to real estate analysis firm Marketproof.
As for the building’s name, it’s a nod to Dumbo’s original name, when Comfort and Joshua Sands bought the land in 1787 as a summer getaway for New Yorkers.
Sales at Olympia Dumbo start at $1.75 million, and are being handled by Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes of the Eklund | Gomes Team of Douglas Elliman, the Novo Team of Douglas Elliman, and Karen Heyman of Sotheby’s International Realty.
The interiors of Olympia Dumbo are being designed by Workstead.
Image: Marchmade
Botániqo flowers in Ecuador
Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao is developing Botániqo, a nine-tower residential development in Quito, Ecuador’s vibrant Cumbayá neighborhood. As its name suggests, the 277-unit property will lean heavily into green design, with flora-filled terraces, rooftop gardens, and a living façade of native plants across the exterior of the towers.
A new public transport station will connect Cumbayá to downtown Quito and incorporate existing trees into the interior.
“I deeply believe that architecture must necessarily become a platform for each inhabitant to develop their own existence,” Bilbao said in a release. “In Botániqo, the human being is at the center of both the concept and the space itself.”
The development is a collaboration with Uribe Schwarzkopf, and it is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2024.
In the News
Manhattan luxury market registers highest week since 2013
For the third time this year, 50 contracts were signed at $4 million or above last week. The $483,647,999 volume is the highest weekly total of 2021, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly report, and the highest week ever since the week of December 16, 2013, when $576,185,000 was inked on deals. 16 properties went to contract at $10 million or above last week, the largest number since the week of March 11, 2013, when 19 contracts were signed.
That continues a trend cited in a separate report from Bespoke Real Estate, which found a 192% increase in year-over-year sales volume for homes in the $10 million-plus range in the third quarter of 2021.
The most expensive contract during the week of October 18 was a six-bedroom triplex penthouse at 443 Greenwich Street, listed for $49.5 million.
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