The Decisive Moment with Ken Fulk

0:01Ken Fulk:In this episode of The Decisive Moment, we step into the world of cinematic interiors with Ken Fulk, the celebrated American designer whose work spans private estates, hospitality landmarks, and immersive events around the globe. Known for his theatrical sensibility, Fulk creates richly layered environments that merge whimsical storytelling with refined craftsmanship. Ken, thank you for joining us in our archive room in our headquarters in New York for an episode of the Decisive Moment. You're an acclaimed designer, always with a striking smile on. I've known you for many years and always admired you.

0:37This is quite the room, by the way. For those listening, it's a stunning room looking out over all of New York and directly at the Chrysler Building.

0:47Ken Fulk:So I would expect nothing less of you, Alex. I'm very, very proud of it and happy to have you. You book? I know. I feel honored for my book to be amongst such a collection. I stepped in and it sort of took my breath away. So you grew up in Virginia. How did that influence how you think about design today? I grew up in a little town and my mother was one of 12 children. And it was a very matriarchal family. My father's family lived on a farm. and, you know, the women sort of ran our lives and ran the households and entertaining and hospitality were important. And I was drawn to history, part, I think, because of where I was, you know, there were the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, there were battles fought all around.

1:42But I also just sort of had a deep interest in it. I was a history major in college and went to school in Virginia. And so I think it was ingrained in me from an early age, but I was also an alien. My parents would bring me out when I was maybe four years old and say, tell everyone where you're going to live when you grow up. And I said, Manhattan. And, you know, I had not left Virginia. I probably hadn't left the county by that point. And they're like, where will you live in this place called Manhattan and I said a penthouse and I don't even know where that came from so I was sort of a study in contrast between someone who was utterly influenced by where I grew up and how I grew up yet always had this sort of my mother called them illusions of grandeur of some bigger life so you

2:36Ken Fulk:have a strong creative vision on all the incredible space that you design when When did you really think that this would become your entire career and you're ready to action that? So I didn't know it for a very long time. However, I am essentially the same person I was when I was six years old. At that point in time, I knew like no lunch could pass. I would climb on the stepstool and get out the china. I would cut flowers. I was in charge of every holiday, all of our sort of family rituals, not because I wanted to be in charge, but because I knew life could be better if lived sort of to its fullest.

3:24Like, why let these moments pass? Little moments, big moments. You know, I also rearranged our living room like on a seasonal basis. But I didn't know that it would be a career. I never put those two things together until I was in my late 20s, sort of trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I originally, out of college, took a corporate job, which I sort of hated. I was in marketing and sales, but I'm competitive, so I was good at it, but it felt like a trap. And then I started a couple of creative businesses, and none of them were traditional design. And one day, a friend asked me if I would decorate their apartment.

4:13They had a new apartment. It wasn't even really just decorating. I took over the whole thing. I sanded the floors. I sewed the drapes. And it was all a surprise. They didn't give me any constraint. That's how it started? constraint. And so I delivered it in a reveal, which became part of our culture at my company, where we can't just simply deliver a project, we have to create somewhat of a spectacle around it. So I hosted a party for my friend and first client, and they saw their apartment for the first time. I probably lost double the amount of money I was paid just to get it done, but it didn't matter.

4:52I just knew it was like I had to let it out. I had to make it happen. And it was like a light switch turned on and my life changed. Suddenly I had jobs in Martha's Vineyard. I had a job in the south of France. I suddenly did someone's wedding. It really just became like an aha moment. And it really was my decisive moment where my whole life felt like a Rubik's cube coming into position. And from there, it has felt like a rocket ship.

5:24Ken Fulk:You had so much fun doing it. So much fun. But it was like a faucet went off. Suddenly, I realized, oh, wow, this is what I'm supposed to do. Who I am is what I'm supposed to be doing as my life's calling, my work. It was an unexpected yet utterly almost preordained moment somehow in my life. And it's like winning the lottery in life to have all of those things fall into place. So that's what we call the decisive moment. The moment in time where it actually takes a spark for you as a guiding principle. My life's purpose and direction in my career is going to be this, at this moment that you realize it.

6:07I never studied. I have none of the technical skills. I can't draw. I couldn't draw a circle. Yet I had utter assurance that I knew what I was doing. But I also knew that I didn't want to be boxed in. I didn't want to have what someone else thought like a design business or a decorating business or an events business was supposed to be. so I got to kind of make it up but that was definitively my decisive moment and it hasn't

6:39Ken Fulk:stopped since you spend a lot of time um in San Francisco I mean most of your time right now right well I think I spend most of my time on a plane but um when I'm not I like to be in San Francisco you mentioned the Magic Factory wow what a name so that's your studio right yes in San Francisco Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's an old S &M leather warehouse. Yes, factory. Factory. We'll get you geared up, don't worry. How come prepared? Are you drawn to spaces with a past, or you just like that contradiction? No, no, no, I'm deeply drawn. The Magic Factory was built at the turn of the 20th century as a furniture factory, but its most illustrious piece of history was during the 70s and 80s, It was really the center of this big San Francisco leather scene.

7:32Even today, the Folsom Street Fair, which is a leather fair, is the second largest event in California behind the Rose Bowl. And it's huge. And the epicenter of it used to be our studio. But back in 2007, we purchased the building. I purchased the building with the idea that, you know, I could sort of live and work there. It was going to be this Warholian moment that I was going to fill it with the most creative people. And we would do, you know, exciting work. And it really all came to be. I used to live on the top floor. And then the next two floors of the kind of layer cake were our studio.

8:17And the lowest floor was my warehouse to begin with. And then it became what we called Peep Show, this sort of fun gallery. And then it morphed into our retail shop. And so it's really been a manifestation of our work. We opened almost 11 years ago. We opened a New York version of that in Tribeca. We have a really fun, cool studio. A year and a half ago, we opened in Los Angeles. And we actually are moving, speaking of old buildings, breaking news, is that we are moving our Los Angeles studio to Charlie Chaplin's film lot, which Chaplin built behind his house. There were these orange groves, and he built a studio in the middle of Hollywood with sound stages, workshops where they would build the props, and it still exists today.

9:07In the 60s and 70s, it became A &M Records, which of probably every great album from that time was recorded in these studios. And then it became the Henson Studios, so where Jim Henson and the Muppets were. And most recently, the director McG and the singer-performer John Mayer purchased it. And now we're coming on board, helping to sort of act as creative director. and our studio is going to move there in the old loft building, which is a very cool, rustic structure, another old structure that we're moving into. It's allegedly where Chaplin would sneak his mistresses in the back door. And so, yes, a long-winded answer.

9:53I love old structures.

9:56Ken Fulk:Love history and memories that come from it. For sure. Can you tell us more how this cinematic lens guides you on the design process of these projects? I've always seen life that way. I once wrote that, you know, it was like as a kid, I expected a troop of dancers to enter from stage left at any moment. But I think part of it is because I didn't have a way to express myself. When I started my business, there wasn't a Pinterest, there wasn't really like, you know, a search engine to go find all these beautiful things. and the only way I could express myself was through words. We still to this day start every single project with words.

10:41It's not that there can't be plot twists in our movies or unexpected things can happen, but from the very beginning we sort of lay the groundwork and the path which I think is unusual and we did a bit of that in the book that we did together where we sort of explained a little bit about how these projects come to life. But it's literally me sitting at a table. I begin talking and everyone is listening and we write what we think is the creative brief for the project.

11:15Ken Fulk:I had Mario and Jeff last year on the Cultural Lounge podcast. Your collaboration with Major Food Group as the creative director has resulted in some of the most distinctive spaces in hospitality. So how do you work on translating the culinary identity into this physical environment? I think it is that it's a little bit of the magic of our relationship. I think when Mario and Jeff and Rich and I met, there was something that just sort of clicked. I tell clients that we have to learn to speak the same language. With them, it was early and we immediately clicked. I think when we look for something like Carbone, we just opened Carbone in London.

12:00And what was that going to feel like? What was that going to be like? It's in an iconic building. It's in a Saarinen, the former U.S. American embassy, right in the center of Mayfair on Grubner Square. And how do you take this iconic American restaurant and bring it there and have it feel sort of relevant and I think relatable to its environment yet keep the DNA. And I don't like to repeat myself. And so you won't go into any one carbone and it will not look like the next one, which is an odd thing.

12:35Ken Fulk:So you have a common thread? For a brand, we utterly do. And so there's pieces of a visual language. How do you take something that was this sort of classic American cafe and turn it into a sexy Carbone. And somehow I was like, it needs to feel like Frank Sinatra woke up on the Grand Canal with Maria Callas after a passionate night. And like those worlds need to collide here. And so it was a little bits of Venice that sort of came into play that, you know, like Miami is on the water and has the sex appeal, but it's obviously such a different place. I'm very interested about what you've done with Felix Rostinko in New York.

13:19Ken Fulk:I see them popping everywhere. Sure. And really so beautiful, refined spaces. And how did this come about? We're part of the ownership of Felix and my partner in it, a guy of Matt Moyen, who is a wonderful gentleman who I was introduced to through Jeff Selaznick, came and said, I want to open the most extraordinary, beautiful, best-in-class coffee experience. And so we began to talk what that meant. We called it the Cult of Beauty. So down from the bags that the coffee gets shipped in, which we created to, you know, certainly the name, but the cups and everything about it, the wallpaper that's custom made for a whole language that is inside Felix.

14:08And so we wanted all of it to be deeply thoughtful and considered from the coffee you're drinking to the space you're in, to the cup you may take away. I don't drink coffee and I go there because it's such a special

14:22Ken Fulk:place. Thank you. So congratulations on that. Tell me more about the St. Joseph Art Society because we did something together a few years ago in San Francisco, and it's such a wonderful place. And we still have lots of beautiful Asseline books there. It is a great story. So St. Joseph's is a cathedral in San Francisco. It was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and it's set empty. I used to drive by it on the way to my studio, and it's set empty for almost 30 years. I saw it for the first time, I think, in 2015. And it was filled with tens of thousands of pigeons and it was raining inside.

15:04Before I stepped in, I thought they're going to have to tear the building down. But I sat there by myself. A friend had asked me to go see it. And I said, I think I'm supposed to buy a church. I credit moving to that city, giving me a chance to sort of make my life up. a city that's about innovation and about possibilities without a lot of constraints. And I wanted to do something that could be a gift, to give something back to the city. And so here we had this big church, and I thought, well, instead of Catholicism being the religion, what is it that we're leaving behind? And on our best days, what do we do?

15:44And we create art, and I think art is what perhaps makes us human. It is the best of who we are and what we are, and it is something that we leave behind and we pass on. And what if the connective tissue of this place became art? And that was art in all of its forms. So we created a foundation. It's a 501c3. We have substantial, renowned artists who have lent their time and their name and their talents. But the real goal is to build a community to support working artists. It is vibrant and exciting. It's physically beautiful and uplifting. And it still sort of takes your breath away. And it has become an essential part of our city's arts community.

16:32I read an article once about a couple that were like deep in their 80s that were super vibrant and someone asked him like what was the the key or the secret sauce to living such a robust life and they said every five to seven years they repotted themselves they would make a substantial change in their lives forcing them to like engage in new ways they would take a new job, they would move, they would, you know, anything that created a certain disruption

17:06Ken Fulk:that made them sort of be more present. You know, I think sometimes we all are so much in a hurry to get somewhere, and especially with projects that we do, these huge projects, you know, it can be something that lasts a night or a place that lasts for generations, hopefully, but there's this rush to get to a conclusion. And I'm like, oh, you don't understand. There's never really a conclusion. And if you don't have joy in that process. And so, so much of my life is about creating joy, but also recognizing it and being in the moment that all of these pieces, you know, they're what make the whole, but each piece has little bits of joy.

17:51It doesn't mean that we don't all have challenges or, excuse my language, shitty things that happen to us. There's so much goodness, not to get too preachy, but I so deeply believe this, but to wake up every day in gratitude for the life that I get to have, but that so many of us in our sort of worlds get to have, just changes things. You see the world differently when you approach it with gratitude.

18:19Ken Fulk:You've been working on so many different projects, incredible ones, but very different. How do you find this kind of spark of inspiration for each of them? So I'm sort of adamant anyone that works with me knows I will never repeat myself. Some people, designers or others, have what signature looks. And I think sometimes people might associate things with us, but truly, if you really look at the breadth and scope of our work, it is very different. And so every job we take, we approach it as if it's the first time, because it is. If I'm doing a project with you, even if we've done multiple projects together, I will never build that boat with you again.

19:07I will never do that lake house. And so we start with a blank slate. And part of that is like, where does it come from? I don't know the answer to that. But they come pouring out of my head. Every project we do starts with me. Our book with Asseline is called The Movie in My Mind. And it really is this sort of series of almost like film clips that just rotate in my head. and I almost have to get them out. And so I'm grateful to have all these projects because I think I would just have like a backup in my brain if I couldn't get them out.

19:49Ken Fulk:You mentioned the book we did together a few years ago called Movie In My Mind. What's the movie playing right now? What's that thing that you're obsessing over that hasn't been a project yet? Oh, wow. You know, I tend to have these love affairs of what we are working on now, but this one's kind of personal. I recently made the decision with my husband, Kurt, that we were going to sell this property we have called Durham Ranch. It's an old ranch up in the Napa Valley. It has been the one constant in my life through sort of my career building and life expanding, but the place that we've always gone back to has been this old, rustic, wonderful ranch up in Napa.

20:33it is just now percolating in my brain. We are supposed to close on the property this week. Of course, I'm like just mesmerized by it and all the ideas. And it's sort of like this bittersweet moment of saying goodbye to something.

20:52Ken Fulk:It's a lot of memories that you're letting go of. Oh my gosh. But I have realized that in order to allow more joy to come in, you sometimes have to, it's bittersweet. You have to say goodbye to things. Is he pushing for it or are you because you love the new project? I think it really was. We sort of made the decision even before the project that we might do it. And so the project just kind of appeared. I can get teary-eyed just talking about the ranch. So it's still fresh. But the excitement of something new and what that could be, might be, and all the memories to be made is exciting. So let's talk about memories then.

21:36Ken Fulk:Because you mentioned your husband, Kurt. Yes. The story behind when you met is really incredible. And for me, it's the perfect Kenfolk origin story. It's how an ordinary moment can become something extraordinary. Can you walk us through that story? It is true. It is a good sort of incredible, I don't know, happenstance. It was a hot Wednesday on July 24th, and it was 1991, and I had just moved to Boston out of college, and I was living in an apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, beyond my means, which is a theme in my life, directly across from the Agonquin Club, which has now become the Quinn, where I serve as creative director.

22:27And, you know, talk about a full circle moment. Never did I think that I would have or play a role in this big, historic McKim, Mead, and White building that I looked out on. But that Wednesday night, my washing machine had broken. The landlord had taken three weeks and didn't fix it. So I took my Saab Turbo convertible around the corner, filled with three weeks worth of laundry, wearing khakis and an undershirt, and saw this young man in the laundromat wearing a Hotchkiss t-shirt and black high top Reeboks. And I thought he was stealing my towels because I'd never been to a laundromat. I didn't know what people did in them.

23:10And he was taking what looked like my towels out of the dryer. But as fate would have it, We had matching burgundy and green, Ralph Lauren towels. He left the laundromat without, we spoke, but he left the laundromat without saying anything and came back a few minutes later and handed me his business card, which I still have. And on the back of it, it said, give me a call sometime. So I went into my fancy car and I had a car phone about the size of a shoebox. And I called and he answered. I'm like, how could he possibly answer? Because no one had cell phones. And I thought I was going to leave a voicemail because I had never called a young man before.

23:55And he answered. And I said, if I didn't call you now, I never would. And we went out the next night. And that was 35 years ago this summer. It will be. Which is kind of crazy. crazy, a happenstance moment when you're sort of like on a hot summer night, not expecting to ever meet someone you might spend your life with. And how, you know, I just think, had I not, had I decided to wait another day, had I been smart enough to call a service to come pick up my laundry? I don't know. But our lives had paralleled one another. We had both gone to school in Virginia. We had similar upbringings. We both moved to D.C.

24:43and then moved to Boston, and we literally lived two blocks from one another. We had multiple friends in common, but had never met until that night.

24:54Ken Fulk:So my next question is, when can I meet Kurt? Oh, wow. You can meet Kurt. You're going to come to Provincetown this summer. If you know anything about me. One of my great love affairs other than Kurt and dogs is Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod. And so this summer, when you come and swim in the harbor and hike in the dunes and ride a bike recklessly down the street, you will meet Kurt. And he's more fun than I am and has the most infectious laugh on the planet. So count me again then. Okay. Thank you for taking us inside your world and sharing not just the visual magic you create, but the heart and intention behind it.

25:38Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. You are a bright light in this creative world, and I'm proud to be associated and part of it.