A LOVE LETTER TO HISTORY The sensitive renovation of this Provincetown home by interior designer Ken Fulk has revived its rich past and creative spirit
An iconic 18th-century house in Provincetown has been given a new lease of life by interior designer extraordinaire Ken Fulk
MEET THE DESIGNER
Ken Fulk shares his style vision and inspirations SECRET ADDRESS Eldred’s auction house in New England has fabulous sales.
BIGGEST INDULGENCE Restoring every inch of this house by hand and reusing all the original timbers.
WHAT’S NEXT We are in the midst of re-establishing the iconic Cloud Club atop the Chrysler Building in NYC.
FAVOURITE BUILDING TO VISIT Well, it happens to be the Chrysler Building at the moment. The art deco details and murals are incredible. I also stop by Sir John Soane’s Museum on nearly every trip to London.
Stories of creativity and derring-do are woven into the fabric of this house, but it’s now ready to host a new generation of artistic adventurers, thanks to interior designer Ken Fulk. He and his husband Kurt Wootton had gazed at this ramshackle building from their home across the street for many years and were familiar with its extraordinary history. It was first known as the Captain Kibbe Cook House, after the 19th-century whaler and traveller who lived here, but in 1906, it entered a new era when it was bought by the civil rights activist, writer and all-round radical Mary Heaton Vorse. ‘When war broke out, this house became a refuge for New York’s creatives and visitors included Eugene O’neil and Sinclair Lewis,’ says Ken.
But in recent years, it had fallen into disrepair and when Mary’s granddaughters approached Ken about rescuing it, he didn’t hesitate. ‘The danger was that someone else would demolish it or turn it into a series of condos and its crooked rooms, low ceilings and paint splattered floorboards would be erased forever. I wanted to hold on to its history.’
Ken began an ambitious overhaul that would leave the house ‘looking as if it hadn’t been touched at all’. The layout today would be familiar to Mary, ‘with rooms that meander into each other’, but this casual, tumbledown elegance was hard won. It entailed painstakingly stripping everything out, shoring up the foundations and then rebuilding it, brick by brick. ‘All floorboards were numbered and relaid, except with modern plumbing and cabling in place,’ adds Ken.
Visitors often ask Ken where he found the beautiful paint colours – the rich barn red on the window frames, the near-luminous blue on the floorboards. ‘But I didn’t repaint anything, I just reassembled it,’ he says. Similarly, the patina on the back staircase was left just as it was found, ‘with deep dips that show all the people who came and went over the decades’, while the paint on Mary’s bedroom floor still bears deeply riven marks where she scraped her chair from her writing desk. Some walls had to be replastered, but this was done by hand by local artisan Nate Mckean, who undertook all the restoration. ‘Putting it back together wouldn’t have been possible without him,’ adds Ken.
When it came to furniture, Ken is an expert at combing antiques fairs and auction houses: ‘Luckily brown furniture isn’t in vogue so it’s inexpensive,’ he says. In the best Provincetown tradition, extra pieces came together fortuitously. ‘A neighbour gave us a wonderful sofa. When our dog chewed the corners of an expensive rug, I used it to cover a wingback chair. A sofa from an auction house was re-covered in vintage quilts I had in my San Francisco studio.’ He also took a lead from Mary, who had written about how luminaries would gather around her circular dining table and debate politics. When Ken reimagined Boston’s Algonquin Club, he came across a huge round table that was a perfect replacement: ‘I love happy accidents like that.’ Chinaware and glassware are an authentic mish-mash of grand and second-hand: ‘Irish crystal lives beautifully next to thrift shop jelly glasses,’ he adds.
Ken also upholds the original spirit of the house by continuing to welcome artists, writers and creatives through its doors, with artists’ residences, events and art exhibitions. ‘I was unsure what would happen when we hung contemporary art on the walls, but it’s been incredible to watch how it too has brought the house back to life,’ Ken says.
“I DIDN’T WANT THE CROOKED ROOMS, LOW CEILINGS AND PAINT SPLATTERED FLOORBOARDS TO BE ERASED FOREVER – I WANTED TO HOLD ON TO THE HISTORY”