ARKHAUS & E-LIXR: Sam Payrovi’s Electric Water Revolution
Sam Payrovi has always had a fascination with electric boats. He likes to joke that he built his first electric boat at just six years old. “I cut the top off a milk carton, made a popsicle-stick propeller, put in an electric motor and a 9-volt battery, and it would run around my pool,” he recalls. “The goal was to see how long it would float before sinking.”
With three maritime start-ups now under his belt, Payrovi has come a long way since that makeshift vessel of his youth. While he’s dabbled in careers ranging from investment banking to hospitality, Payrovi says his interest in electric boats was reawakened in 2005, when he took notice of the first wave of electric yachts being built by a company now called Silent Yachts. “The idea that you could have a boat that runs off the sun and you don’t have to burn oil and gas to get from point A to point B, and be fully off grid, that was really cool to me,” he says.
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“ The entire country’s waterborne ” transportation infrastructure is probably going to change in the next five to 10 years. – Sam Payrovi
Jump ahead to 2021. Payrovi and his wife, Nathalie Paiva, decided to ditch land-based luxury and launch ARKHAUS, a first-of-its-kind floating social club docked in Miami where Soho House vibes meet solarpowered electric yachts. If you’ve been cruising around Biscayne Bay in Miami recently, you may have caught a glimpse of the first two 50-foot vessels: sleek, swanky, and linked like giant floating townhomes, complete with kitchens, cocktail bars, and cushy spaces for dining, lounging, and soaking up those bayfront views. The soft-launch boats play host to exclusive events like private dinners, cocktail hours, wellness events, and charters. By January 2026, the primary commercial yachts are expected to arrive and will begin operating as a private social club; yearly memberships—to the tune of $10,000 per person—are currently being fielded.
Payrovi says that after launching in Miami, more locations are on the horizon. “The goal is to launch seven cities in five years,” he reveals, highlighting New York, Newport Beach, San Francisco, the French Riviera, Istanbul, and Dubai as target markets. “Because we’re not building real estate, we can move into a market much quicker.” He’s also eyeing partnerships with high-end waterfront hospitality brands offering ARKHAUS as a turnkey luxury amenity. “For instance, if we were to work with a Ritz-Carlton waterfront hotel, we’d run the entire experience, soup to nuts,” he says, “So, then we’ve become a maritime services company, where we can help any waterfront hospitality business turn on something similar and we manage it for them.”
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Look beyond the boats’ glitzy surface, however, and you’ll see that ARKHAUS is anchored in sustainability. The vessels are solar powered and have electric motors, so there’s no oil slick or fuel discharge left behind. Payrovi says the yachts also cause minimal damage to seabeds by using spuds (vertical steel poles) instead of typical anchors that rake the sea bottom. “Those spuds only create about six square feet of impact, and they don’t actually insert into the seabed; they just touch the seabed and lift the vessel up,” Payrovi says. He also notes that the vessels have enormous greywater tanks, so nothing is dumped into the water. “When we first thought about ARKHAUS, it wasn’t about building a social club on the water. It was: ‘Can we build a social club on an electric boat that is a completely different with a sustainable footprint.’”
E-LIXR: Zero-Emission Water Taxis (the “Uber of the water”)
Payrovi’s sustainable savviness goes beyond the social clubs—he’s also changing the way people move about responsibly on the water. When he was looking for an eco-friendly and cost-effective way to get guests to ARKHAUS, he came up with the idea for E-LIXR, a zero-emission electric water taxi. “We realized that the entire country’s waterborne transportation infrastructure is probably going to change in the next five to 10 years. Multiple states are mandating zero emissions or incentivizing it,” he says. “We were ahead of the game because we already designed this all-electric water taxi.”
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Now, he’s hyper-focused on technology, developing an app-based platform for a nationwide electric water taxi service with the goal of becoming the “Uber of the water.” Much like ride-sharing on the road, customers will be able to book rides with local electric boat operators through the app. A pilot program has already launched in Miami, with programs in more cities expected by spring 2026.
Under Payrovi’s newly formed maritime brand The Ark Companies, he now has the freedom and control of building the E-LIXR water taxis and ARKHAUS boats. “Now we’re vertically aligned,” Payrovi says of the three companies. “Because we own the manufacturer and the brand, we control what happens with the vessels. How we redesign them, how we modify them, and who gets the vessels.” In the rising tide of sustainable innovation on the water, Payrovi may just be steering the fleet.
By Angela Caraway-Carlton
Quick Facts
Founder: Sam Payrovi (The Ark Companies)
Brands: ARKHAUS (floating social club), E-LIXR (electric water taxi)
Flagship city: Miami (Biscayne Bay)
Tech: Solar-powered, electric propulsion; large greywater tanks; spud mooring minimizes seabed impact
Membership: ARKHAUS targeting ~$10,000/year per person for primary commercial yachts
Mobility: E-LIXR app aims to be the “Uber of the water”; pilot active in Miami; additional cities targeted by 2026
Strategy: Vertically integrated—design, build, operate under The Ark Companies
Vision: Scale to multiple U.S. and international waterfront markets; hospitality partnerships as turnkey amenity
People Also Ask / FAQ
What is ARKHAUS? A floating, solar-electric social club operating on linked 50-ft vessels for dining, wellness events, and private gatherings.
How is it sustainable? Electric propulsion, solar power, spud mooring (minimal seabed contact), and large greywater tanks to avoid discharges.
What is E-LIXR? A zero-emission electric water-taxi platform with an app for on-demand rides from local electric operators.
What’s the business model? Membership revenue for ARKHAUS; ride revenue/marketplace model for E-LIXR; both supported by in-house manufacturing.
Where is it expanding? Miami first, with additional U.S. and global waterfront cities in development through 2026.
