Page 15 - Club Braman Magazine Spring/Summer Edition

ROBERT AND CATHY BARRETT
Powerful couple in powerful Rolls-Royce Motorcars.
Ask Robert J. Barrett III why he needs two Rolls‐Royces and he answers with a glint in his eye: "I need one Rolls‐Royce to take the family to church on Sunday. I need an- other Rolls‐Royce to go to the o ce and I might as well have a convertible for that.”
For Barrett and his wife, Cathy Tankoos Barrett, the luxury automobiles are emblematic of their lifestyle. Worldly and accomplished, their friends and business associates cut across some of the most iconic gures in recent history. For Bob, that’s Edward and Robert Kennedy to Margaret Thatcher to Donald Trump, go- ing back to his Atlantic City Days.
Cathy, a former fashion editor of Town
& Country magazine, has been friends with Winston Churchill, Aristotle Onassis and Grace Kelly. Given all that, and the impressive lives each has led, you’d think purchasing a Rolls‐Royce would be a serious decision.
But, as Cathy tells it, “Bob goes to Publix for a loaf of bread and comes home with
a Rolls‐Royce instead.” It may not be that simple, but it’s not that far o . Rolls‐Royce Motorcars of Palm Beach makes the expe-
rience easy for him.
Bob — who’s owned up to nine cars at
a time and has bought 10 from Braman dealerships — recently came home with a black 2009 Rolls‐Royce Phantom Drop- head. He picked up the classic, with only 9,000 miles, once he heard it was going out of production. Already in his garage was his silver 2015 Rolls Phantom.
“Bob goes to Publix for a loaf of bread and comes home with a Rolls‐Royce instead.”
- Cathy Barrett
“When I go to Braman, I know the guys in there intimately,” Bob says. “Braman has a great selection, and if you walk in, you can really nd the choice you’re looking for.” Braman’s service, and the relationship he’s built with Assistant Service Manager Bill Richter, also add to Braman’s World Class Experience, according to Bob.
“Bill will tell you that the best‐operating cars in the world are Phantoms,” he says.
Neither Bob nor Cathy is ready to slow
down despite their impressive achieve- ments around the world. Bob — chairman of Cross Keys Investment Bank of Florida; Florida’s No. 1 investment banker, accord- ing to Forbes; and an attorney — does pro bono work in both Palm Beach and New York, assisting widows and widowers who are being abused by the legal system and other professionals.
Cathy — an international croquet champi- on, an inductee of the United States Cro- quet Hall of Fame and a former European and U.S. fashion model — is Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution Palm Beach Chapter. She’s not without a Rolls‐Royce in her life, either. In the 1960s, she traveled around New York City in her classic Phantom 5.
Still, one of most fun things the Barretts experience is taking friends out in their cars. “They love to get in that Phantom and drive away,” Bob says with a chuckle. “What they really like is to get to a restau- rant and have the valet open the door and escort them out of the car. You can see these people smile like hell.”
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