Why Not Treat Yourself to Paul Allen’s $90 Million Superyacht?

If you happen to have $90 million to splash around on a superyacht, there will be a pretty nice boat for you at the Monaco Yacht Show later this month. The tub in question is Tatoosh, which belonged to late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died in 2018.

Remarkably, and though it stretches 303 feet long, Tatoosh was Allen’s “spare” superyacht; his other boat, Octopus, which sold last year to Swedish pharma billionaire Roger Samuelsson after it was listed at $325 million, is 414 feet long. Amazingly, Tatoosh currently ranks as just the 60th largest yacht in the world, while Octopus ranks 20th. Tatoosh is available via both Fraser Yacht Brokers and Burgess.

The name ‘Tatoosh” means “breast” in the Chinook Jargon, in reference to the two large rock outcrops on the south face of Arizona’s Butter Peak — make of that what you will! — and the Tatoosh Range was used historically by the Taidnapam indigenous people. Originally built in 2000 by German shipyard Nobiskrug for telecommunications executive Craig McCaw, Allen purchased the vessel the following year for an estimated $100 million. The sale price of a yacht can be a fiercely closely guarded secret, but if that $100 million figure is accurate, then the Microsoft mogul’s estate, valued at about $20 billion at the time of this death, is headed for a hefty, albeit easily affordable loss.

Tatoosh was initially put up for sale not long after Allen’s death, but was taken off the market for a refitting. Now, the Terence Disdale-designed interiors include an owner’s full-beam stateroom, plus 10 other staterooms that all together will accommodate 19 guests whose every need are attended to by a crew of 31. The owners’ apartment covers two decks and includes two dressing rooms, a comfortable observation lounge laid out with a private galley and a large secluded deck. There are a couple of additional cabins for children that can be incorporated into the owner’s apartment.

Fabulous features include an elevator that services all five decks, bulletproof windows, a vast parquet-floored salon with limestone fireplace, a movie theater with ruby-red velvet seating, a beauty salon, and a gym. There are numerous tenders and water toys, not just one but two helicopter pads, a mosaic-tiled heated swimming pool on the main deck — the floor can be hydraulically raised to be flush with the decking — and a “beach club and dive center,” a water-level space in which to lounge around in the sun, drop in for a snorkel or take a soak in the mosaic-tiled spa tub.

Interested? Prepared to spend $9 or $10 million a year on maintenance and staffing costs? Well, get on over to Monaco, which is lovely this time of year. At least with Tatoosh, buyers in the market for a boat that costs many times more than most people will earn in several lifetimes can be confident it has only been owned by Americans and as such has a clear title, unlike the many yachts owned by Russian oligarchs that have been seized as punishment for their country’s invasion of Ukraine.