NEW YORK — Blackstone Infrastructure’s Safe Harbor Marinas has agreed to acquire MarineMax, the nation’s largest recreational boat retailer, in a $1.5 billion all-cash deal that analysts say completes private equity’s most ambitious project yet: the acquisition of the American weekend.

Under the terms of the deal, MarineMax shareholders will receive $53.00 per share — a premium that sent the stock soaring 46% on Monday, as investors apparently celebrated the news by buying more boats.

“We are thrilled to welcome MarineMax into the Blackstone family,” said a spokesperson for Safe Harbor, reading from a statement that did not contain the word “boat” a single time. “This acquisition creates a vertically integrated platform for premium water-based leisure infrastructure.”

In other words: the firm that already owns your apartment, your storage unit, and the data center that stores your vacation photos now owns the boat you were going to buy to escape all of it.

“It’s like finally saving up to leave the casino, and discovering the casino bought the taxi company,” said boat shopper Dennis Fowler, 58, who was at a MarineMax showroom in Fort Lauderdale when the news broke. “I wanted a little 24-footer. Nothing fancy. Just me, the open water, and absolutely no quarterly earnings calls. Then I read the press release and realized the open water has a board now.”

"The American dream was to own a boat. Now the dream has a managing director, a waterfall structure, and a synergy slide."

Analysts hailed the deal as a natural next step in the firm’s strategy of owning, in ascending order, everything. Blackstone already controls tens of thousands of rental homes, millions of square feet of office and warehouse space, and — through its data center investments — a nontrivial share of the internet’s collective anxiety. Boats were, by any measure, the last unowned frontier.

“People thought private equity could never buy the ocean,” said Meredith Kohl, an analyst who covers leisure acquisitions. “They were right. The ocean is still unowned. But every dock, every slip, every boat show, and every vessel that floats in it now belongs to a portfolio company. That’s 90% of the way to owning the ocean, which is 100% of the way to owning the dream.”

The company was quick to reassure customers that nothing would change about the boating experience, aside from the addition of “enhanced member benefits, streamlined financing, and quarterly performance reviews for your vessel.”

Boaters, for their part, are adapting with the resilience of a species that has survived every merger wave before this one.

“I’ve made peace with it,” said Fowler, who had been standing in the showroom for two hours. “I’m going to buy the boat, moor it at a Safe Harbor marina, and every time I look at the horizon I’m going to pretend it’s a quarterly earnings call. It’s the only way to truly relax.”

WHAT BLACKSTONE ALREADY OWNS (PARTIAL LIST)

  • Your apartment building (rent is due on the 1st)
  • Your storage unit (the one with your old kayak in it)
  • Your old kayak (indirectly, through the storage unit)
  • The data center storing the photos of your old kayak
  • Your boat (as of this week)
  • The marina where you keep your boat (as of this week)
  • The lake, analysts note, "in spirit"

At press time, Blackstone confirmed it had no immediate plans to acquire the horizon, but that it was “monitoring the asset class closely.”