A year after Trevor Fulmer launched his eponymous design firm, the lockdowns of March 2020 struck. “We couldn’t go to clients’ homes. Business slowed down,” he remembers. Wanting to stay productive, he put his passion for pattern into developing a collection of wallcoverings and rugs called Natural Principles.
Fast-forward to post-pandemic, and one of those wallcoverings was helping him tackle a different kind of issue. “I said, ‘We want to take this paper – which is a fairly busy pattern – and we want to run it up the wall and across the ceiling. Then we’re going to connect it with these wood slabs that are going to be behind the sofa,’” relates Fulmer – recalling his pitch to an uncertain client. “I knew there was hesitation, but let’s face it: as designers, we should push the boundaries a little bit.”
The homeowner had discovered Fulmer through Instagram after noting his work on other units in the building, The Quinn luxury condos in Boston’s South End. “I do remember that we connected right away,” Fulmer recalls. “It was like chatting with a friend.”
That connection would come in handy as Fulmer set out to reimagine the apartment from white rectangles to a layered feast for the senses. The client requested an earthy feel, and Fulmer was intrigued by bringing that concept to a sky-high apartment. “I love the idea of earth and air – two polar opposites somehow connected,” he shares. So he set out to “wrap the entire place in neutrals” and incorporate natural materials, including stone, leather, linen, raw metal and plants. He remembers looking at the stone on the bar – with veins appearing like mountain ranges carved by waterways and tree lines – and thinking, This is a 30,000-foot view of the Earth.
Certain aspects of the homeowner’s lifestyle offered latitude. With the client neither a fan of television nor of formal entertaining, there was no need to orient the space for viewing angles or accommodate a dining table. Plus, being child-free meant not having to worry about performance fabrics, sharp edges or vinyl wallcoverings. “Things were a bit more open,” Fulmer explains.
But the space also presented challenges, including smaller bedrooms. In the primary, Fulmer compensated by keeping the furniture low to the ground. “I had to carry the eye up visually without feeling weight,” he asserts. “We found this great wallpaper pattern; it almost felt more like a mural” and offered the feel of a full-wall headboard. Meanwhile, he unlocked the guest bedroom’s multifunction potential with a Murphy bed, recessed lighting and ottomans pulling double duty.
Fulmer describes the client as “so appreciative that we had paid attention to every design piece and addressed all of his asks.” And Fulmer was ready to move on to a new collaboration: a rug collection focused on contemporary design and sustainability called Foundations, in partnership with Landry & Arcari. “I think relationships are the key to life, to business, to everything,” he states. “I’m a big believer that what you put in is what you get back.”
Photography by Sean Litchfield.
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