San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Trails Forever’s big haul; Ken Fulk’s arty new project.
A record $2.1 million was raised at the 16th Trails Forever dinner, a beloved “blue jeans and boots” gala benefiting restoration efforts and education programs of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy that took place Sept. 29.
Trails revelers — 450 of them — gathered atop verdant Crissy Field for a McCalls dinner inside a clear Kathleen Deery-designed tent facing the wind-whipped bay and glowing Golden Gate Bridge. Later, 210 next-gen parks supporters boogied at the late-night Night Howl. The evening was organized
by co-chairs Amy Ritter, Charlotte Haas Prime and her cousin-in-law Allison Eisenhardt (with emcee Doug McConnell).
And since the evening also honored Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy President and CEO Greg Moore, now in his final year as the nonprofit’s leader, organizers chose a cherished locale for this particular party.
“There’s a fundamental concept of joy in these parks,” Moore said. “But Crissy Field is very treasured by me because the restoration of this former airfield is such an incredible and moving part of our conservancy history. It was a project that really put the conservancy on the map and gave our community access to this beloved place.”
Established in 1981, the group’s early efforts centered on a shelf of books devoted to Alcatraz, the sales of which were the conservancy’s main revenue. Moore, a former park ranger-landscape architect overseeing planning and environmental design in the national parks, joined the conservancy in 1985.
Board chairman Colin Lind paid tribute to Moore’s many accomplishments during his tenure, including developing youth education programs for 750,000 students, engaging 500,000 volunteers who care for the parks and raising a whopping $500 million in support of the Golden Gate National Parks.
“The funny thing for me is 33 years is exactly half my life, so I’ve spent half my life leading the conservancy,” Moore noted. “We’ve grown from an organization with three staff members to 350.”
That’s in addition to saving and transforming 1,491 acres in the Presidio (a former Army base) into national parkland, rehabilitating more than 100 historic structures, building four park visitor centers, three cafes and five Presidio overlooks along with protecting 33 endangered or threatened species.
That last effort was a Trails Forever theme this year that attracted one of the park’s newest denizens: a curious coyote observed from a distance as partygoers posed for selfies with a coyote sculpture and similarly costumed character.
During a live auction of luxe park packages, auctioneer extraordinaire and conservancy trustee Mark Buell announced the new Greg Moore Parks for All Fund, an initiative to ease barriers of access or economics for families and schoolchildren and connect them with our Golden Gate National Parks. When a new CEO is named, Moore said he will remain close to the organization, serving as a special parks advisor with a focus on completing the Tunnel Tops project.
And Moore will also circle back to his past, helping develop the next era of Crissy Field — the former concrete wasteland and airfield he transformed in the late 1990s thanks to a $15 million lead gift from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund.
Moore chuckled as he recalled his late father, a military man and Harvard Business School grad, who didn’t entirely understand his son’s passion for running a nonprofit.
“During a visit, I took my dad to Crissy Field where he once landed planes as a military pilot. But now it was filled with families and kids playing along the bay trails,” Moore recalled. “My dad said to me, ‘I finally get what you do: You’re in the make-people-happy business.’ ”
Holy Fulk: From a distance, the scene Friday inside the former St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Howard Street seemed rather sacred. However, Pope Francis might’ve blushed upon realizing the costumed angels were getting their groove on atop the former altar-turned-dance floor with devilish gents draped in bishop robes.
But leave it to Ken Fulk, the inimitable globe-trotting designer, to rescue a 22,000-square-foot Romanesque Revival church (the 1913 structure is also a National Register of Historic Places and San Francisco City Landmark No. 120) badly damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Now he’s expertly transformed that space into the decidedly secular St. Joseph’s Arts Society, a subscription-based membership club.
His 300 guests were dazzled by the electric evening of performances by burlesque artists and drag queens Juanita Moore and David Glamamore, decked out in paper nun ensembles for a captivating performance of “The Flower Duet” from the opera “Lakme.”
Whistles were wetted at a Ryeon-the-Road bar, and caterer Paula LeDuc, the society’s culinary partner, served delicacies in the former vestry turned medieval-inspired dining hall.
The club also features a Carpenters Workshop Gallery upstairs on a newly built open-air mezzanine. Below, along the aisles of the former nave, are six salon spaces hand-crafted with lush fabrics, lounge chairs, Oriental carpets and rotating artworks by emerging and international creators.
Fulk describes his effort as an incubator for creative expression among artists. And his vision is a community promoting cultural conversations and supporting innovations in fine art, design, food, fashion, literature and performance art.