Five decades ago, John Storyk’s life “changed on a dime” when he met Jimi Hendrix. The then-22-year-old musician-carpenter had just completed his first design project for New York’s Cerebrum nightclub. Hendrix admired the space’s aesthetic and asked his manager to track down its designer to work on his own Greenwich Village space that would later become the now iconic Electric Lady Studios. Given the guitarist’s involvement, says Storyk, “it was famous before it was even done.”
Nearly two decades later, Storyk met his wife and business partner, Beth Walters, an interior/fabric designer, and they co-founded the Walters-Storyk Design Group. WSDG now counts over 60 employees across six offices in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland and Brazil — and after 50 years, Storyk has become a respected figure in the science of sound.
Storyk has designed over 3,500 audiovisual production spaces globally, including commercial studios, educational facilities, multimedia/podcast rooms and even home studios for stars such as JAY-Z, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen.