AZURE 2015-03-04

The Cobb
RepoRT
Zita Cobb in conversation
with Azure’s Editorial Director,
Nelda Rodger
Photography by Alex Fradkin
ZiTa Cobb is a foRCe. One of seven siblings who grew up on Fogo
Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, she left in the ’70s to
attend university and wound up making millions as an executive
in the fibre optics industry. In 2003, she returned to her
native island and, with brothers Alan and Anthony, established
the Shorefast Foundation. Its objective is to revitalize the
island’s culture and economy, which was devastated by the
collapse of the northern cod fishery in the late ’60s.
Cobb describes herself as a businessperson whose instincts
go to business, but she is anything but risk averse. Her ideas for
accomplishing the tough goal of diverting some of the world’s
capital to a place that calls itself “one of the four corners of the
earth” focus on art and geo-tourism. Unfazed by lack of expertise
in both the art world and the hospitality industry, Cobb has
been steering full speed ahead for over a decade, guided by keen
observation skills and an uncanny ability to pick the right talent.
Among the foundation’s first initiatives was establishing an
artists’ residency program, for which four strikingly contemporary
studios were constructed in 2010 and 2011. Designed
by Norway-based Newfoundlander Todd Saunders, they perch
on dramatic coastal sites around the island. The architect also
designed the 29-room, five-star Fogo Island Inn, a study in
vernacular building combined with edgy Scandinavian form.
Raised on stilts over the rocky coastline, it generates a forcefully
futuristic yet oddly familiar effect.
The diminutive, exceptionally down-to-earth Cobb might
seem like an unlikely saviour for an island that has found itself
outside the stream of world commerce – but that’s before you
hear her ideas and feel her passion. Her latest under taking will
bring to market the furniture designed for the inn by a select
group of top creators – another Shorefast Foundation project
intended to promote local employment. There’s a slight problem
with getting the collection to the mainland, but for Cobb that’s
just a small kettle of codfish.
66 mar ⁄ apr 2015 azuremagazine.com