The businessman Paolo Zampolli has counted Donald J. Trump as a friend for decades. In the 1990s, when Mr. Zampolli ran a modeling agency, he played matchmaker for Mr. Trump, introducing him at a party to his future wife, Melania.
Now Mr. Zampolli, 55, is helping Mr. Trump in another way: reshaping the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
Mr. Zampolli has served on the center’s board since Mr. Trump appointed him toward the end of his first term. But things have changed rapidly since Mr. Trump began his second term with the stunning takeover of the historically bipartisan institution, firing all of the Biden appointees on its board and having himself elected chairman.
Exactly what it all means is still coming into focus. Several artists have canceled appearances there, and the musical “Hamilton” scrapped a planned tour there next year. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as its new president, recently said that the center planned “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.”
Mr. Zampolli, who shares Mr. Trump’s attention-grabbing instincts, has his ideas. He wants the center to launch art into space with the help of Elon Musk, host Valentino fashion shows, and open a marina on the Potomac and a Cipriani restaurant.
“We need to make the Kennedy Center a destination,” Mr. Zampolli, a special envoy for Mr. Trump who once served as a United Nations ambassador of Dominica, said in a recent interview. “It has the hugest potential ever.”
The conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Q: You’ve argued that the Kennedy Center is due for an overhaul.
When you go to Saks Fifth Avenue, they try to maximize every inch, every square foot of the space. It has to be a bankable business, and so do we.
The goal of the center is to bring more money and people in. But the Kennedy Center is not a destination. When people say, “Hey, where are we going to tonight?,” you don’t think about the Kennedy Center. All the ideas that I came up with are about making it a destination point.
Q: What are your ideas?
We can have a fashion show with Valentino, the top designer in the world, in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy. That would be very glamorous. You can seat a couple thousand people for a gala, who pay $200 a ticket, and people will go, and the center will make money.
We can franchise the Kennedy Center’s name in Europe and Asia and the Middle East, like the Louvre does in Abu Dhabi. That would be lucrative.
You can build a marina. I’m convinced it would be terrific. The Kennedy Center is very difficult to access. You put in a little marina, and on the weekend you go there — the yachts park there. You go to a beautiful restaurant. It will be a beautiful experience.
