One of the truly wonderful things about this job is all the fascinating people I’ve met when writing stories for Southforker — and, at times, the friendships that have grown out of those stories and how those friendships lead to other great tales to tell.
I was having coffee at Star’s with one of those friends, the talented Cristina Peffer of Ram Design Studio. Over coffee and breakfast burritos, I was telling her about stories we were working on for the magazine when she was struck with an idea: “Have you ever met my friend Kiki Boucher or seen her ship house?” I hadn’t, but boy was I intrigued.
Kiki, it seemed, had taken an old fuddy-duddy ’60s ranch house and reimagined it as her very own ode to the ship liners that transported her as a kid to and from France with her family, as well as knit into the aesthetic thread of her life her love of Brutalist art, Art Deco style and odes to her family and France. Of course, I jumped when she graciously offered to give me, then a stranger, a tour. I was so charmed and fascinated not only by how gorgeous her home was, but by her thoughtful choices, by the personal history behind everything, the practical reasons she applied to certain design choices and the wonderful time we spend sitting on her ship’s deck, where she graciously told me her thoroughly fascinating life story (or at least some of it). Not only is Boucher a person with incredible style, I also found myself admiring her as a woman who took matters into her own hands in both work and her personal life, never letting her boat run ashore. Cheers, Kiki. You’re my number one this year!
