Photography by Kirsten Beckerman
I can do casual. REally. When “evening attire” calls for flip-flops and tank tops, I simply add a pair of earrings (and a shot of Cutter’s behind the ears). But at the same time, I’m a complete sucker for old-school summer glamour: Men in white dinner jackets. Women in satin halter gowns. The Philadelphia Story by the pool.
That’s why visions of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn were dancing in my head when I saw the website for La Bella Vita, a sixty-five-foot motor yacht offering “boat and breakfast” cruises on the Bay. Captain John Arban of Arban Yacht Charters provides luxe excursions to a number of destinations; among the offerings is an overnight trip to Vera’s White Sands Beach Club, described as a “legendary” waterfront nightclub on the Chesapeake Bay.
Cruising by yacht to a night club? It sounded like the retro getaway of my dreams. I called Arban and booked passage for the
following weekend.
When Saturday morning came, I packed the tank tops, the flip flops, and a new dress and headed with a friend for Solomons Island. Arban was waiting dockside at the Calvert Marina on Back Creek to escort us on board La Bella Vita.
My, she was yare.
The picture of nautical elegance, our cruiser had a spacious salon of glowing mahogany (blessedly air-conditioned on this steamy afternoon) and a covered aft deck that offered all we needed to enjoy a day on the Bay: shade, wide-open windows, leather seating, and a well-stocked cooler.
“You’ll be staying in the Governor’s Suite,” said Arban as he led us below deck. Indeed, Mr. O’Malley would have been delighted with the dense king-sized bed, built-in cabinetry, full bath, ample closet, curtained windows, and authentic ship’s clock (though we never did figure out how to silence its crazy bells). It was, as promised, a space where we could stretch out and relax. Though La Bella Vita has three cabins for guests, each with bath, ours wasthe most spacious.
With Arban at the helm, we cast off and were underway, waving regally to sailboats and skiffs heading in from a day on the Patuxent. Passing under the arch of the soaring Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge, we motored north, setting a course for St. Leonard’s Creek. The Patuxent has seen plenty of naval history, providing an escape route for the American fleet during the War of 1812, but the only escapes going on this day were much like our own. The Whalers and Wave Runners that buzzed by had a languid quality, their drone dampened by the gathering humidity.
I asked Arban how much gas it took to fill La Bella Vita. “Fifteen hundred gallons,” he replied cheerfully. That probably wouldn’t have made a dent in the wallet of the boat’s first owner, the CEO of Coca-Cola, who commissioned the boat in 1970, but today, that’s real money. “We can go all over the Bay,” said Arban. “One of our favorite places is The Tides Inn in Irvington—you can have a day of golf there, and be back on the boat at night. Or we’ll head to Tilghman Island or St. Michaels or Oxford. It’s great for a getaway—no Internet! Most people get so relaxed that they fall asleep on the way back.”
An hour past the bridge, we turned into St. Leonard’s Creek. Vera’s was just ahead, Arban said, pointing to a cliff-side Shangri-La in the distance—but so was a thunderstorm, and the low rumbles in the air were getting ominous. Would we have time for a dip in the resort pool before we dressed for dinner?
As we approached, I realized that the rumbles weren’t thunder. They were…Harleys. Lots of them, gunning through the parking lot next to the quaking palm trees at Vera’s White Sands Beach Club. The scene was leather, gray ponytails and tats, with nary a white dinner jacket in sight. We were arriving in red-carpet style at a redneck convention.
Once La Bella Vita tied up at the pier, we slipped into bathing suits and headed for the deserted club pool behind the restaurant. Floating chaises bobbed invitingly, and we took full advantage, cooling off as the branches bent with the gusts of the coming storm. By the time it arrived, we were back in the Governor’s Suite, watching sheets of rain pummel the pier.
“You’ll want to make dinner reservations at the restaurant,” Arban advised. We did. But when we arrived at the appointed hour, Vera’s was a like a cruise ship without a rudder. A harried server promised us an empty but uncleared table, then vanished. We retired to the bar to take in the scene.
It was there we learned the story of Vera Freeman, “Calvert County’s Empress of Glamour,” a one-time Hollywood starlet who landed on the shores of St. Leonard’s Creek in the ’50s. A true femme fatale (in the Hepburn mode, no doubt), she was a fixture at her eponymous club until her death last year, furnishing it in trademark tiki style. When she sold the property to Steve Stanley and Lisa Del Rico in 2006, they remodeled from the ground up, but kept the kitsch.
The overall effect, we decided, was what a restaurant might resemble if Gilligan and Lovey Howell had collaborated on the décor: turtle shells and bamboo screens, leopard-skin chairs, and white linens. But the views from the full-length windows on both sides were nothing short of fabulous, and evening’s special—a dozen crabs, hush puppies, and four beers for $48—was
a classic Chesapeake repast.
We lingered over dessert in hopes that the promised live music might draw us to the dance floor. But alas, the playlist by the guitar-playing duo ran more to Bob Seeger than “Begin the Beguine.” We beat a soggy retreat back to the yacht, swathed against the downpour in borrowed trash bags.
On the bow of La Bella Vita in the misty morning, we sipped coffee, nibbled warm banana bread, and watched a bald eagle swoop over the shore. Kathy, John’s wife, emerged from the galley with crème brulee French toast, and by the time we’d finished, the sun was peeking through. On the trip back, we basked on the foredeck cushions and discussed plans for our afternoon in Solomons.
After docking, we strolled Solomons Island’s promenade along the river and ended up at the Calvert Marine Museum. The log canoe, drake-tail, and bugeye were suitably swell, but I found myself lingering near the pool where the museum’s two resident otters, Bubbles and Squeak, held court. Sleek, dark, and handsome, they glided across the tank like it was a dance floor. The pair showed casual elegance, with a dash of style. I thought Vera—and Grant and Hepburn—would have approved.
Carol Denny loves watching old movies from her Arnold, Md., home.
