Billy Joel's Dreamboat. Yes, he's had three car accidents in the past two years, but that's not why Billy Joel spends about 25 percent of his day dreaming about boats -- especially the "screamingly fast custom-built commuter yacht he is helping design," reports Timothy K. Smith in Fortune (9/20/04). It seems the piano man has always been into boats, and it's a passion that spawned "a bona-fide boat-building business" for Coecles Harbor Marine on Shelter Island in New York. Back in 1996, the story goes, Billy asked Peter Needham of Coecles Harbor whether "a boat has to look like a Clorox bottle" to go 40 or 50 knots. The answer was "no" and the outcome was the 38-foot Shelter Island Runabout, www.therunabout.com, a $340,000 "dayboat," by Zurn Yacht Design, www.zurnyachts.com, that looks like an old-fashion rumrunner, and goes really, really fast.

Coecles has since built 36 of these Runabouts, and Billy collects a royalty on every single one (almost sold one to Jimmy Buffett, who backed out after deciding that he would feel like he was "sitting on another man's throne"). What gives Billy a real charge, though, is the idea of revitalizing an industry: "You used to have these crazy mom-and-pop boatbuilders all over Long Island, and little by little ... the big production guys bought 'em all up." And started making Clorox bottles. So, now Billy Joel has decided he needs a commuter boat that can take him from his Oyster Bay home to New York City in about a half hour.

This boat -- the Shelter Island Commuter, zurnyachts.com/power.html#0164 -- isn't quite finished yet, but it is a "rakish" 57-footer, "with surface-piercing propellers beneath a voluptuous torpedo stern," and will run Billy somewhere between $2 million and $2.5 million. "What we're trying to do with this thing is basically combine a PT boat's speed and durability with the look and feel of a '30s-era commuter, with a low profile like a rumrunner," says Billy. The boat actually is modeled after the Aphrodite III, a commuter commissioned in 1937 by John Hay Whitney, whose goal was to "beat his brother-in-law to Manhattan." Despite its pricetag, Billy's Commuter is stripped down inside to keep the craft lightweight -- it has no staterooms or galley, just a head, some lockers and bunks. So, will Billy use this boat to commute to his office in New York City? Of course not. He's a rock star, remember?

Hollander Pillows. For the past 50 years, family-owned Hollander Home Fashions has made pillows for everyone from Costco to Laura Ashely -- but now it crossing that great divide between making private labels marketing its own brand name, as reported by Carlye Adler in Fortune Small Business (Sep 04). It's a transition once made by the Abington Shoe Company, which, in 1973 found "colossal success" after creating a waterproof leather boot and branding it, "Timberland." But it's also a transition that is not without its dangers -- Hollander is now competing against the retailers with which it built its $200 million business -- but ceo Leo Hollander and his son, Jeff, the president, see it as their most promising pathway to growth.

As Leo explains: "People see six pillows in a store ... They look the same, so people buy the one they know." And so the decision was made, about two years ago, to brand Hollander pillows. Bed Bath & Beyond gave Hollander, www.hollander.com, its opening shot, agreeing to allow the company to market an upgraded bed pad, which is now hitting the stores and is already profitable. The Hollanders also hired a New York City-based brand identity firm, In the box, who arrived at "comfort" as the brand's focus (the days of selling on price and quality alone were over). Several focus groups later, the Hollanders settled on "Live Comfortably" as their new tagline, and the brand's logo was also upgraded and is now "woven onto a silk label along with the tag line and sewn on its products." Says Jeff Hollander: "The idea is to look like a wine label."

To help play out the "Live Comfortably" tag, Hollander "created a website, www.livecomfortably.com, "featuring a panel of advisors, including a feng shui expert, a chiropractor, and a color specialist ... The site includes such articles as 'Spring Cleaning for Comfort' and 'Tips for Pillows,' which are also sent to the media in a bid for free publicity" (the tactic seems to be working for them). What the Hollanders don't do is sell pillows online, which might upset its retailers, which actually doesn't seem to be a problem: "Our competition is Ralph Lauren or Liz Claiborne," says Ivy Tan, svp of Laura Ashley. Meanwhile, over at Bed Bath & Beyond, sales of Hollander's bed pads "were up 30 percent to 40 percent within three months" of their launch. About 30 percent of Hollander's business is now branded, and reportedly "doing well." Observes industry editor Don Hogsett: "Hollander was an established company chugging away nicely, but not it's become energized."


Tim Manners, editor