Private Air New York

www.privateairny.com Private Air | Spring 2020 63 A WORLDLY SPIN By: Andrew Humphreys Photography By: Paul Marc Mitchell I n one corner, an assistant is slowly sticking down South America. In another, someone else is carefully giving the equator another coat of varnish. It may not take the Biblical six days, but making a planet in the 21st century is no easy task. On the other side of the world – about three feet away – stands the man who equates to God in this scenario: Peter Bellerby. He may well see all that he had made, and likewise, conclude that it is perfect. Bellerby and his team of artists, craftspeople, and designers are the only contemporary bespoke globe-makers of their quality still operating on the 1:1-scale Earth. It all started back in 2007 when Bellerby wanted to buy a globe for father's birthday, who was a naval architect. To his surprise, he couldn't find a decent one, so he decided to invest some time and money, and make a couple himself. "It was almost as a bet: just how hard can it be?" he says, sitting on a battered sofa at his workshops in a mews in north London's Stoke Newington, somehow an unlikely spot for planetary production. "But then I found out just how hard it can be…" Indeed, he soon found himself so steeped in plaster of Paris and runaway cost that giving up would be as severe as going on. So he plowed in much of the money he had made in some property wheeling and dealing and turned it into a business Bellerby & Co Globemakers. "I was six months in and still wouldn't tell anyone what I was up to, in part out of embarrassment in case it didn't work out and in part, because it just seemed such an odd thing to be doing." Certainly, for the first year and a half, there was no demand at all, and when orders did come in, the company was selling at a loss, even with prices from £999 THE COLLECTION

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