Nashville At Home: A Hollywood Entertainment Executive Puts Down Roots In Music City
Kathleen Flaherty in the entryway of her Nashville home (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
KATHLEEN FLAHERTY IS A NASHVILLE NEWBIE HAVING MOVED HERE FROM LOS ANGELES ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO. IN LA, KATHLEEN SPENT THE LAST 15 YEARS BUILDING K21 COMMUNICATIONS. IN HER ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER, SHE’S WORKED WITH NOTABLE STARS AND LUXURY BRANDS — ASHTON KUTCHER, SHARON STONE’S PLANET HOPE, COUNTING CROWS, FERRARI, MOET, NIKE, OAKLEY AND THE LIST GOES ON.
Family Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
KATHLEEN’S GREEN HILLS HOME IS RADIANT WITH COLOR, CREATIVITY AND JOIE DE VIVRE. EVERY DETAIL TELLS A STORY AND REFLECTS KATHLEEN’S PERSONALITY, PASSIONS, TRAVELS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS. THIS GIRL’S A TRUE FORCE OF NATURE AND IT WAS PURE JOY CATCHING UP WITH HER AT HOME IN NASHVILLE.
Living Room. Years ago, Kathleen found this coffee table in an alley in Beverly Hills. She had it painted and added a piece of quartz on top. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Kathleen added two of her favorite quotes from The Wizard of Oz inside these ruby red slippers on her living room coffee table. Glinda: “You always had the power.”
One of the most dynamic laundry room’s I’ve ever seen. Wallpaper is from Amazon. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
I love meeting women who run their own businesses. How did you get your start in ENTERTAINMENT and how did your company, K21, come to be?
As a kid, my dream was to work in the entertainment industry so after college my plan was to move to Los Angeles but I got sidetracked in San Francisco where I landed at a technology PR firm. I didn’t exactly know what a PR firm did but a good friend suggested it and thought I’d be good at it. It turned out to be an epic time to be in Silicon Valley. The Internet was just kicking off, innovation was off the charts and there was an explosion of startups. It was beyond exciting. After about two years, I noticed that most PR firms were turning away start-ups who couldn’t pay gigantic retainers, so I started my business to fill that gap. I had my own tech PR firm for about 7 years.
In 2001 my dad passed very suddenly and that was a huge catalyst for change. I went to Thailand for a month and stared at the ocean, read books, became a Reiki Master and re-evaluated my life. I loved San Francisco and my tech business was booming, but I realized that if I was going to follow my dream, it was time to go for it. So, I moved to LA. I figured I’d get a job with a traditional PR firm in Hollywood and learn the lay of the land, but LA executives didn’t see the connection and value between my tech background and entertainment. Entertainment folks were only concerned with who I knew at People magazine and I knew no one there. I essentially had to start over because entertainment only wanted folks who knew entertainment. Then I got lucky and Sharon Stone hooked me up with a marketing and talent management firm, Bragman, Nyman, Cafarelli (BNC), and they offered me a job.
Kathleen and Sharon Stone (photo from Kathleen’s personal collection)
The Sharon Stone?
Yes. While I was in San Francisco, I did some PR work for a local home furnishings design boutique and I became good friends with the owners who were friends with Sharon. Sharon actually officiated their wedding. That’s how she and I met.
Family Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Family Room. The Ranch is a Netflix comedy/drama starring Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliott. Kathleen was a Consulting Producer on the show. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Working in entertainment marketing at BNC was a big shift away from PR but I loved it. I worked crazy hours and was exposed to incredibly smart people, learned all about overarching marketing strategies, brand building and talent management. I realized I liked being part of the full picture — so my career evolved in new directions outside of PR and marketing.
I got so lucky on the business front and also met fascinating celebrities, attended the Oscars, Emmys, Superbowl, Cannes Film Festival and we worked with folks like John Travolta, Prince, Kate Hudson, Regina King and brands like Cadillac, Bono’s (RED), Moet, and Ferrari. It was a blast and as a girl from Wellesley, Massachusetts, Hollywood had always been this mythical magical place to me, but I got there!
Owner’s Suite (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Owner’s Suite (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
What made you decide to leave?
The jobs at BNC are highly coveted and once people land them, they don’t leave. There’s almost no turnover. I could see the glass ceiling and knew there was really no place up for me to go within the company so I decided to go back out on my own again. It was very hard and very scary to give up that cache and access, but I’ve never looked back. Today, my company K21, focuses on business strategy in several areas - technology, entertainment, venture capital and fashion.
Kitchen Sitting Area. The model of the Eiffel Tower was a gift from actor Ashton Kutcher. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Ashton Kutcher’s one of your clients and he gave you that fabulous Eiffel Tower in your kitchen. What’s the story behind that?
Ashton’s been my client for 13 years. He’s hands down one of the smartest people I have ever met — constantly learning and growing. I have an enormous amount of love and respect for him and I’m blessed to work with him on so many of his business ventures and his non-profit, Thorn.
Ashton gave me the Eiffel Tower for Christmas years ago. I graduated from the American University of Paris so he knows Paris was very meaningful to me. It’s absolutely one of my favorite possessions. I decided it needed some color so I surrounded it with a mini–Tuileries Garden. Tulips all around just made sense. They’re from Michaels.
Kitchen Sitting Area. This floor lamp was initially brown. Kathleen painted it white. The pillows were made by Kathleen’s mother. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
When Ashton was doing “Two and A Half Men,” we filmed on the Warner Bros lot. It was a real full circle moment because 15 years earlier, long before I knew Ashton or lived in California, my sister, Joanne, and I took a public trolley tour of Warner Bros Studios. We ditched the trolley and snuck around the Warner Bros lot by ourselves to see what movies were being filmed. We actually saw George Clooney playing basketball (he was filming “ER”)! And then we got caught and kicked off the lot. But all I could think of that day was, “I have to work here someday.” And it happened. All these years later, I still try not to take any of it for granted. It’s a fun and blessed life.
Kitchen. Ron Galella is arguably the world’s most recognized celebrity photographer. Time magazine calls him the Godfather of Paparazzi in the US. Galella hounded Jackie Kennedy Onassis so much, she took out restraining orders against him twice. This is Galella’s most famous photo. He calls it “Windblown Jackie.”
What made you decide to move to Nashville?
After 15 years in California, I started yearning for something different. At the time, I was working on a Netflix show called The Ranch (starring Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliot) and it had a strong country music presence, so we went to Nashville several times. I liked the vibe and the people. They were so down-to-earth and real. Over the next year, I had four really good friends move to Nashville. The stars aligned and it felt like the universe was saying, “all roads lead to Nashville.” My clients were okay with it, too. Before Covid, I’d go back to LA about once a month. I’ll do that after Covid too.
Nashville has been extremely welcoming. I now serve on two boards here – Academy of Country Music Lifting Lives and Thistle Farms. I have met incredible people through both.
Home Office (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Home Office (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
What drew you to this house?
It was a disaster of a house when I looked at it and I knew I could never take on a project of that magnitude from LA. But after I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop designing it in my head. It was built in 1976 and was very dark, shag carpet, wallpaper everywhere. The rooms were choppy, no recessed lighting, everything was dated. I was drawn to the bones of the house and I knew I could open and brighten it up and make it my own. I knocked out a wall between what’s now the dining and living rooms, a wall in the master suite, added all new flooring, took out the paneling that used to be in the family room and gutted the bathrooms. I had looked at new construction homes but those homes were someone else’s vision. I needed a place that I could create myself.
Family Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
I love the novel way you decorate with shoes.
I love shoes and I grew up with a Mom who loved shoes, so it’s in my blood. I see a beautiful shoe the same way I see a Picasso painting. It’s all art. My mom had a pair of lavender Manolo’s displayed on a shelf so I stole the idea and did the same.
Dining Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Dining Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Talk about your dining room. Clearly you’re fearless when it comes to color.
Color is really important. It can lift you up or drag you down. When I was growing up, my mom let all five kids pick out color schemes for our bedrooms. One year my brother picked out this shiny gold wallpaper. It was awful. No woman in her right mind would have wanted that in her home but my mom bought it and hung it in my brother’s room. She was a gifted decorator and could do anything. She’d wallpaper, paint, sew the curtains, make the throw pillows. She even built the desk that was in my dad’s office. I realize now I’m more like her than I knew. I’ve been reading home design magazines since I was a kid and pulling out pages that inspire me. I have files upon files of ideas. When I bought this house, I had design ideas for every room in a file cabinet and in my mind.
I wanted a black dining room because I had an article about one in my folders, so I pulled it out, called the designer and asked her a million questions. I asked if she used a flat or matte black paint, what fabric she used on the chairs and she told me everything. She had the dining table lacquered so I had my table lacquered. I couldn’t find high-back chairs for the head of the table, so I called her back and asked where she found the two wing-back chairs with the zebra stripes. They were custom, and she gave me the name of the shop to have two made! The custom chairs were expensive but the other four chairs are from Overstock. I’m a firm believer that not everything in your house needs to be monumentally expensive. High / low decorating always works. I’ve had the dining room buffet for years so I had it lacquered too. A coat of paint can change anything. My dining room table came from West Elm, was 50% off and used to be brown.
Guest Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
Kathleen’s guest room closet which she stocks with amenities and toiletries for guests. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
What does home mean to you now in the context of Covid?
Before Covid, I travelled a lot. This is the most time I’ve spent in my house since I bought it. I know how incredibly lucky I am to live in a space I love so much. I see my house as a wide-open canvas on which I get to paint anything that moves me. I guess it’s the story of me, the things I’ve done, the places I’ve been, my family and the people who mean the most to me and I want them all to come visit once Covid is over!
Kathleen’s brother had this tree made as a housewarming gift. It is modeled after a tree in Dr. Seuss. He has an identical tree in his home. (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)
If you could have a second home anywhere in the world, where would it be?
South of France or Amalfi Coast.
Family Room (photo by Julie Lee Simpson)