The Sky Club mural was an 80 ft. long painting, painted in oil on canvas, depicting the various ports-of-call of the early Clipper ships that sailed the world in the 1830s. It is no coincidence that Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American World Airways, was fascinated with Clipper ships and named his Pan Am aircraft after them. The mural begins with Gloucester Seaport (circa 1830) in New England, continues to Rio de Janeiro (1850s), the Port of London (1830s), Constantinople (Istanbul circa 1850), Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour (1860s), Lahian Maui (circa 1860s) and ends with New York Harbour in the 1850s. I finally completed this mural for the entrance lobby in May 1966.

In December 2005, the Sky Club on the 56th floor of the now called MetLife Building, at 200 Park Avenue, New York City, was closed and the fate of the extraordinary 80 foot long mural was thrown into uncertainty. But on January 25, 2006, the Stamford Auction House entertained bids for the mural.

Ed Trippe, son of Juan Trippe, eagerly placed a bid with an eye to keeping the mural, commissioned by his father for Pan Am, “in the family.” Ed Tripp’s plan was to bring the mural to Bermuda, where he heads the development of a luxurious residential and resort community, perched above Castle Harbour and the ocean, called Tucker’s Point Hotel & Spa. The development occupies land acquired by his father in the 1950s. Ed Trippe won the bid and found himself the new owner of the mural. The artist wrote to him at that time saying “It is truly the wish and will of the Gods that the mural finds its rightful place with you.” The mural was eventually removed from the walls of the old Sky Club by museum experts and transported to Bermuda. There, it is now lovingly displayed once again, in the new very exclusive, luxurious Tucker’s Point Hotel & Spa, and not too far from a portrait of Juan Trippe.

Please see www.tuckerspoint.com under “The Point Restaurant”.