For Jimmy Fallon, the host of The Tonight Show, nothing is ordinary about his homes in New York (pictured below). When he needed one-of-a-kind design and custom fabrication, he reached out to Vistage member Michael Bednark.
Fallon’s Manhattan home features three floors of custom fabricated décor: a full English-style bar room, a tree-wrapped turret, and several hidden nooks, rooms and passages. Fallon’s barn in the Hamptons — where he’s shot recent episodes of The Tonight Show — houses a 30-foot-tall cedar tree that forms railings for stairs and a balcony, as well as an immersive game nook and adult-sized tube slide.
Bednark, the owner of Bednark Studio Inc., spent his childhood around creative people and places on Cape Cod. His dad had a millwork and woodturning business and he spent multiple summers building sets for the many theaters in and around the peninsula. Now, he works closely with companies like Nike, Google and Peloton to design and build immersive experiences that build brand recognition and loyalty.
A decade ago, Bednark had a 7,000-square-foot space and two employees. Today, he employs over 100 people in a 65,000-square-foot space in Brooklyn, New York. Soon, he’ll likely expand to a bigger studio.
Assembling a business is an art, Bednark realized — both require refinement, patience and craftsmanship.
Of all the big projects, Bednark says his biggest strength is finding the right people to work together. “I love solving design challenges by bringing the right group of artisans together,” he says. “Finding the right people, for the right project — and seeing how that chemistry evolves and makes the project better than expected — is magic.”
