News article: What It Takes to Make the Whitney Museum Gala Happen

The typical Sunday for most people rarely includes planning a dinner for 4,000. But for David Stark, an event designer, it often does. “It is a lot of odd hours,” Mr. Stark, 47, said of his work, which includes the Whitney Museum Gala on Nov. 19. Even if your own parties are more modest, Mr. Stark had some advice: “Oftentimes hosts think their job is over once they’ve set the table and put the food out,” he said. “I feel the process begins when people walk in the door. You brought them together because you like them, so don’t drop the ball on the socialization aspects of the evening.” Mr. Stark lives in Brooklyn Heights with his husband, Migguel Anggelo — a singer, dancer and actor — and a complete collection of “Golden Girls” episodes.

SLEEPING IN, UNTIL 7 Every day I wake up at 5 in the morning. I often work quite late at night, too, so my sleep is quite a minimum during the week. Sunday is the one day I give myself to wake up naturel, without an alarm. Now, the sad thing is my body clock doesn’t allow me to sleep till 10, so I’m probably up at 7 or 8 anyway, but it is a luxury not to have to be reliant upon the alarm to wake.

PRIMAL SCREEN The first thing I do, sadly, is grab my iPad and scan for incoming emails from the night before. One thing I do religiously every morning is check the website Remodelista. I’m mostly looking at interiors and gardens. I spend 45 minutes when I first wake up. I look at the papers as well.

GRAY PUMPKINS If it’s a beautiful day I’ll often go out and find a farmers’ market somewhere. I’m into all the gray pumpkins this year. The idea that you can have a whole collection of pumpkins that are gray is very intriguing to me.

STIMULANTS AND INSPIRATION There’s some tea for me, coffee for Migguel. We are generally back in time to watch “CBS Sunday Morning,” where there’s always a lot of inspiration.

GAME, SET, FEAST After that I often will go play tennis at the Tennis Center in Prospect Park. I’ll play for an hour or so, and Migguel and I will go out into the world to get something to eat. The most boring solution, which I love, is Le Pain Quotidien on Montague Street. If that’s the new McDonald’s, sign me up. Or, Migguel is from Venezuela, so Sunday morning is often about him making us arepas. He’ll make plain ones, but we’ll have it with scrambled eggs and onion and tomato, or smoked salmon — the Venezuelan version of bagel and lox.

VISUALS Then we’ll go out into the world for cultural exercise. I might start out at the Museum of Arts and Design, and then walk over to the Plaza Food Hall for a snack, and then after that go up to the Whitney. I always have my professional radar on. I’m not always aware that it’s on.

SLOW DOWN At 4 or 5 o’clock it becomes nap time. I used to feel guilty about naps. Now I try to realize that naps and things like going to cultural institutions and going to the park and lying in the sun — that’s an activity. It’s not that you weren’t doing something else. Sometimes I’ll go to Brooklyn Bridge Park after the museums, pre-nap. Or we might go to Smorgasburg for a bite.

PREP FOR THE WEEK I might work for an hour, getting prepared for the week that’s coming. Then we either go out to eat or make something for dinner from the food that was gotten at the farmers market. We love an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn Heights called Sociale. There’s another one in Boerum Hill called Rucola.

SWEET STROLL After dinner we’ll walk over to Van Leeuwen for ice cream. I particularly like their mint chip. Then we might walk through Atlantic Avenue, looking at the windows in the shops there. I generally don’t have much time to shop, so that evening stroll might be the most that I have. But I find that to be a cultural experience as well. Going into stores is not dissimilar to me to going to museums.

A GOLDEN FINALE There’s not a night that goes by that we do not watch “The Golden Girls.” Migguel has a special attachment to it because he learned English from watching “The Golden Girls.” So for him that’s his blankie, if you will. We’ve been watching it every night for six years. It never gets boring. I go to bed about 11, 11:30.

#SundayRoutine readers can follow David Stark on Twitter @davidstarkinc or Instagram at david_stark_design.

A version of this article appears in print on November 16, 2014, on page MB2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Hunt for Inspiration. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
What are the most important parts of this news article?
For David Stark, an event designer who helps plan parties including the Whitney Museum Gala, a typical Sunday includes time with his husband, a trip to a museum and a nap.