'It All Grew Out of Me Being a Weird Kid' – Ken Fulk Was Destined to Become a World-Acclaimed Interior Designer, and This Is What He Knows About Creating Perfect Spaces

One of the most celebrated interior designers working today, Ken Fulk is known for his cinematic, story-driven approach to spaces, events, and experiences. His landmark projects include all the Carbone restaurants and Miami's Casadonna, but he also creates glamorous homes across the globe.

As part of our Layered Lives series of interviews with leading designers, Ken reflects on the formative influences that shaped his distinctive aesthetic, from a childhood spent orchestrating family rituals in rural Virginia to his unconventional path into the design world. He shares how an early instinct for detail, atmosphere, and storytelling evolved into a career built on creating immersive environments.

Along the way, he discusses the importance of lighting, flowers, and entertaining, as well as his belief in design as a tool for emotional connection. Ultimately, it's Ken's imaginative vision that continues to redefine interiors as experiences rather than just spaces, shaping how we think of design today.

Homes & Gardens: Let’s start with the early days. As a child, can you remember anything that sparked a love of interiors?

Ken Fulk: I didn't know that interior design was a craft. I grew up in a little town in Virginia – it was very bucolic. My grandparents owned a farm. To set the scene, my grandmother was one of 12 kids, and it was just expected that you were kind and warm, but you were also a bit manic running a farm. So while you were expected to keep a nice house, entertain, and take pride in it, you were just expected to know how to do it, and it wasn't anything anyone ever discussed or thought about openly. But somehow, a love of quality of life was ingrained in me – I was essentially an alien.

Homes & Gardens: In what way were you different?

Ken Fulk: Well, when I was four years old, I would just tell our dinner guests that when I grew up I was going to live in Manhattan, in a penthouse. I don't know where I got the idea, because I had never even left the county. And then by the age of six, I was the ringmaster of my family's life, and it was me who would set the table, cut the flowers, and get the china down from the cabinets, which I had previously organized. And I would pick out little buttons for my blazers – every detail was always selected by me.

Homes & Gardens: What was it about selecting details that you were drawn to?

Ken Fulk: I just knew that life would be better if we all had perfect experiences. I didn't grow up with money, and my family were simple people in a little town, but that didn't stop me from wanting to make everything perfect. So I would pick out what we were going to do for Christmas, and I would know all the right gifts for everybody, and I would calculate the optimum time to get the tree so we could enjoy it, but it would still look fresh on the big day. Orchestrating these rituals – it wasn't that I had the desire to be in charge, it was just that I had a sense that if I could set the stage, then we could all embrace the moment more easily.

Homes & Gardens: It sounds like you were born fully formed! Did it then seem like interior design was always going to be your career path?

Ken Fulk: No, I never thought of it as a career. I was deep into my 20s and had gone to college as an English and history major in Virginia, and I knew that I loved architecture and historic homes. But I moved to Boston and got a proper job (which I hated), so as a hobby I kept a beautiful apartment. Truly, I was living beyond my means, but it mattered to me that my home was chic.

Homes & Gardens: What was your first home like?

Ken Fulk: It was an apartment in a historic building that had been converted, and the part I lived in had previously been the home's parlor. It was one of the old formal rooms and, as such, had huge bay windows, high ceilings, two bedrooms, and a dining room. I was 23 years old, and I felt it was very grand. I didn't have any money, but what I did have I'd spend on the apartment, getting things like matching green and burgundy Ralph Lauren towels.

Homes & Gardens: Did your love of doing up this home help you parlay into working in interiors?

Ken Fulk: I met my husband Kurt after I'd been living in Boston for three weeks – we met in the local laundromat – and together we moved to California and started a couple of businesses that were more creative than my 'real job' in Boston. We were making shower curtains and pillows; it was all very charming stuff. Then we started making bed linen and pajamas for children, and then Discovery bought the company. So I needed a new job, and a friend said, 'Here is $15,000 – can you do up my home with it?' and I was like, 'I can do this!' I literally sanded the floors myself and did it all.

Then I got jobs in places like Martha's Vineyard and the South of France, being paid very little but becoming sort of like a concierge for people, fixing things up for them – anything from a wedding to a house. And I'd do everything, from the flowers upward. It was like being a kid back with my family again – I became the ringmaster in these people's lives, setting the stage for them, orchestrating everything.

It all grew out of me being a weird kid – my one superpower is that I can see the world through rose-colored glasses and understand what any given situation needs to make it more beautiful.

Homes & Gardens: What are your go-tos for making the world more beautiful?

Ken Fulk: I'm obsessed with good lighting – I still find it the most egregious thing when it's wrong. We do a lot of work in the South of France, and the nicest restaurants there can look like parking lots. Everyone needs a dimmer switch. I always go into places and change out the bulbs – I like amber ones that are almost brown and give everything a really warm glow. They're my secret sauce.

Homes & Gardens: Flowers are also key to your aesthetic – how and why?

Ken Fulk: I just loved flowers as a kid – I would go out and clip them from the garden. We had peonies on a hedge at the back of the yard, and I would go and clip them and set the table with them. And I still have this love of flowers – we now have a whole floral department at the studio where we do weekly arrangements for clients who want them. Fresh flowers help create a space's love language.

Homes & Gardens: Do you have any favorite flowers to decorate a home with?

Ken Fulk: Anything that smells like a California spring. So that's garden roses, wisteria, or lilac – those scents that are intoxicating but not overwhelming. The clipping and styling of flowers helps set the ritual of a space, which is partly why I also have an enduring love of taking china down from a cabinet, creating a collage of china and glass on the table, choosing music that transports you and lifts you up and makes you want to dance. All these things help you be present in the room, as you're really aware of what's around you. Talk about an imprinting method.

Homes & Gardens: What's it like to be entertained at home by you?

Ken Fulk: We don’t entertain often in our house in San Francisco. We moved here 15 years ago to a house surrounded by a garden, and it's such a sanctuary for me, Kurt, and the dogs – it's truly a retreat. Where we do entertain is in our house in Provincetown, where we're very relaxed.

I used to think that everything always had to be perfect, but I had a moment where a light went off in my mind and I realized you can't be fancy in P-town! Every house is crooked, there isn't room to be ostentatious, so it has a relaxed nature – it's very genuine – and we entertain with a great sense of ease. I have to prepare people when they come and say to them, 'Your feet may be off the bed, the shower is outside, but we'll have a good time.'

On the rare occasions I entertain in San Francisco, I set a more proper table, the flowers are more composed, and I have wine chosen and set out, and I am more orchestrated. But it doesn't need to be more than that – if you're not having a good time, then your guests aren't either, and everyone is tense. The joy is the togetherness, not the perfection.

Homes & Gardens: As you've evolved, has the way you design interiors shifted too?

Ken Fulk: Not really – we still approach every project the same way. Since I wasn’t trained and cannot even draw a circle, I still don't sketch a plan out like many designers do. But I do see spaces finished in my head – I call them movies, as they have a cinematic quality – and I know what they need to be.

So with my team, we will sit around a big table at the start of a project, and the process begins with me describing what I see in my head. I'll say things like, 'Imagine Jackie O in Gstaad in the 1970s meets a sexy cowboy in the 1950s in Montana,' and we talk about it, and it becomes words, and we write a script for our projects. There is never Pinterest – I just wave my hands around and talk and create narratives. This is the same whether it’s a house or a restaurant or a party.

Ken Fulk’s story is one of instinct, imagination, and an unwavering belief in the power of beauty to elevate everyday life. From his childhood as a self-appointed 'ringmaster' to his global design practice, his approach has remained rooted in creating meaningful, sensory-rich experiences.

Rather than following traditional rules, he relies on intuition and storytelling to shape spaces that feel alive and transportive. His reflections on entertaining, creativity, and the emotional impact of interiors reinforce a central idea: design is far from superficial. Instead, it has the ability to ground us, connect us, and offer moments of joy and escape.

Ken ultimately reminds us that thoughtfully crafted environments don’t just look beautiful – they enrich how we live, gather, and experience the world around us.

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