“My mantra in life has always been sanity is the exception rather than the rule,” says Lesner. “Whenever I am presented with any scenario I don’t quite understand, generally I follow it out because the very best things that have happened to me in my life are because I didn’t take the safe method. I tell myself, ‘Ultimately, somewhere down the line, this will make sense.’”

And make sense it has. Lesner admits that purchasing his 92-foot yacht, aptly named Kinsai, which means “golden celebration” in Chinese, was an impulse buy, one he does not regret. The media entrepreneur who operates Michael Lesner Productions Inc. and has a resume that includes stints at Leo Burnett Company, Young & Rubicam, and CBS television was in Hong Kong in 1986 when the commodore of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club introduced him to what was to become his floating home. Three days later, Kinsai was his, even though Lesner had zero boating experience and was approximately 12,000 miles from home.

“Did I know anything about boats?” asks Lesner. “Not just no, hell no. The only boat I’d ever been in prior to this was a nine-foot rowboat that my father and I used to go blue gill fishing in the Wisconsin Dells.” Lesner hired a crew of three men and spent two and a half months in the southern shipping lanes of the Pacific Ocean getting his new toy home. Similar to the purchase itself, there was a tiny detail Lesner knew nothing about but would have to deal with once he arrived home – docking the boat. The newly christened yachtsman contacted the Coast Guard to inquire about where to park his yacht, as he arrived near the Henry Ford Bridge in Wilmington and pulled into a cargo-shipping area full of horrible smells, a situation he laughingly describes as “the furthest thing from being cool.”

Lesner is full of engaging stories regarding his home, but Kinsai’s rich history did not begin with him. Built by George Converse in 1924 in Palm Beach, Fla., for cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, the yacht was used as a day cruiser in the 1920s and ‘30s, hosting luminaries such as the prince of Denmark. After renovation, the Kinsai became the first private motor yacht to float through the Panama Canal after World War II. The boat remained on the East Coast until San Francisco surgeon Lewis Levy brought her west during the 1950s. Levy was responsible for taking the yacht to Hong Kong, where the Kinsai received its name.

The Kinsai is a rarity among the boating community for two main reasons, Lesner says. First, the original engines of the 1920s ran on gasoline, which caused many similar yachts to burn. Second, other boats were kept in freshwater, which fosters dry rot. Lesner solved these problems by installing two diesel engines and docking in saltwater, which allows the wood to pickle, not rot. Amazingly, Lesner says he took one look at the boat as it was presented to him and instantly got a vision of what Kinsai could become.

“I knew if the boat got some TLC,” says Lesner, “I could make it last another 100 years, with the help of epoxy resins and linear polyurethanes.”

Lesner’s renovation began with sound advice from the commodore who told the then-prospective buyer that the hull featured all-bronze fasteners, was cross-planked with fir and oak, and used nothing but teak above the main deck. This information silenced any doubts Lesner had about Kinsai’s reliability. Knowing she was sturdy enough to fix up, the Chicago native began by replacing all the decks with Honduran teak, then installed new windows and performed the necessary work on all hatches and thermopanes.

Lesner converted his wiring system from DC to AC and constructed a living room out of a space in the center of the boat formerly used to store four lifeboats. This area now includes a marble fireplace and spacious bar. Everything in this room, with the exception of the chair/ottoman and bar stools, is built into the ship to ensure nothing slides around. The upgrade process continued with adding a flat floor to the living room, constructing a ceiling, creating sides to the boat, and taking the outside hand railing out and moving it indoors.

One major area of contention was Lesner’s addition of a four-person spa that sits on the fantail, a distinctive area of yachts where guests can mingle outdoors on the stern. Lesner received a few worried complaints from classic yacht enthusiasts who believed a Jacuzzi would tarnish the Kinsai’s legacy. But Lesner had a plan.

“In a normal classic yacht,” says Lesner, “that’s just a big, open area where people would have drinks. But I thought if I was personalizing the area and have all this space, it was going to be less about having space for 10 or 12 people and more about how to use that area enjoyably for me and somebody else. The classic yacht association had a fit, so in order to placate them, I built a teak enclosure for the Jacuzzi.”

To the naked eye, Kinsai appears to be 100 percent complete, but Lesner says he never gave himself a deadline to finish what he envisions for his home/office. This means the entrepreneur is in the midst of a constant renovation process. Next on the list is redoing the deck area and sprucing up the fantail. For a guy who knew nothing about boats, Lesner says he has learned a few tricks and fixes many smaller items aboard his home. Larger issues are a different story.

“I maintain the vessel pretty much by myself,” says Lesner. “When there are little things that have to be done, I do it. I enjoy doing that because it’s great therapy, but it’s not because I’m particularly good at it. There are certain things I know how to do. The rest I leave to the experts.”

Lesner considers the Pacific Ocean his “changeable backyard” and its inhabitants his neighbors. He says he is visited by ducks, blue heron, starfish, stingrays, king fishers, and the occasional baby shark. Where conventional homeowners worry about “surprises” on their front lawns left by neighbors’ dogs, Lesner once had to deal with a sea lion giving birth on his dock. Family men are also frequent passers-by.

The single and childless Lesner says he shares a non-verbal bond with them.

“The typical walk-by,” says Lesner, “is a family man with his wife pushing a baby carriage. That person will walk down the sidewalk and pause. He’ll look at the boat and not a word be spoken. I look across and think, ‘That could be me,’ and he looks across and thinks, ‘That could be me.’”

Common necessities such as closets and ample kitchen space are taken for granted by those who live in traditional settings, but for Lesner, they come from a productive imagination. Suits hang behind a curtain in the Kinsai’s navigation room. The crew’s quarters were reconfigured to accommodate a full-size washer and dryer and extra refrigerators. The galley, a term used to describe the location on a ship or aircraft where food is prepared, is a condensed space that fits two comfortably and includes a sink, four-burner stove, regular oven, and microwave.

“It’s a little bit of the Midwesterner coming back,” says Lesner. “I’m the imaginative child who got a year out of the cardboard box that came with the washer and dryer my parents bought. That box was a fort, a rocket ship, and a submarine for months.”

Do you have a remarkable home or know someone who does?
E-mail your suggestions to joen@longbeachmagazine.com.

Décor provided by 755 Pine & Pier 1 – Marina Pacifica / Catered by Open Sesame