The Park, Kenmare: New owner Bryan Meehan on moving the Brennan brothers' hotel forward

Over the course of their media ascendency, the Brennan brothers shrewdly ensured their internationally renowned Park Hotel Kenmare remained front and centre, and their decision to sell became an avidly followed national news story as it played out. 

When they finally found a suitable buyer, Bryan Meehan, a California-based Irish businessman and serial entrepreneur largely unknown to the general public, he too became part of the story, invited on to Brendan O’Connor’s RTÉ radio show.

Though Meehan presents as softly spoken and reserved, there is more than a sneaking suspicion he won’t be sliding back into the comparative obscurity of his fellow hoteliers, as plans for his new investment include some radical departures which are bound to renew focus on the stately old dame of Kenmare and its new proprietor.

Graduating from Trinity with an economics degree, Meehan began working in sales for Guinness, and then United Distillers, before pursuing an MBA in Harvard. 

He set up Fresh and Wild organic food shops in London in the late 90s, growing a successful business before selling to US company Whole Foods Market. 

Next came a business collaboration with Ali Hewson, Bono’s wife, the Nude Skincare brand which was subsequently acquired by LVMH. 

Meehan’s big payday, however, came with the sale of US-based Blue Bottle Coffee chain, with a majority shareholding sold to Nestlé in 2017 for $400m. 

He is also the new owner of Dromgarriff Rainforest, in Glengarriff, Co Cork, acquired in 2021.

'I WANTED TO COME BACK'

After years of living abroad, Meehan was beginning to feel the pull of home: “I wanted to come back to Ireland and do something here because it’s more than 30 years since I left.”

He may have left over three decades ago, but the twists and turns of his childhood were crucial in shaping the man he is today.

“My dad had a rough childhood in Clonakilty. His mum died at seven and then his dad remarried very quickly a year later but died a year after that. The new wife took his pension from Ford’s and put them all in an orphanage in Cork. He got out when he was about 15 or 16 and wound up in London working as a salesman for a Jewish guy, Harold Rare, in the rag trade. Harold liked my dad, and taught him a few things.

“Mum was from a big family in Tinahely, Co Wicklow. She left home at about 14, and ended up in London, working in John Lewis. She had a tough time, teased about her accent, and embarrassed by her lack of education.”

Meehan’s parents met and married in London where their four children were born, Meehan is the youngest.

“She christened me Bryan, with a y, so I would fit in better in London. She wanted for me what she couldn’t have for herself – education, no teasing.”

When Meehan was five, the family returned to Dublin where his father opened a fashion store on Wicklow St, but the oil crisis and consequent soaring interest rates of the late 70s sent the over-extended business over the edge. 

They also lost the family home, sending the family tumbling down the social ladder, downsizing from Stillorgan, in Dublin, to Newtownmountkennedy, in Co Wicklow. However, Meehan remains forever grateful for a crucial lifeline cast their way at the time.

“We went to Gerard’s in Bray, which is actually a posh school I suppose, but that was my mum’s doing. She came from nothing and wanted everything for us. But when my father told them we had to leave as we could no longer afford the fees, I was given a scholarship. The principal said, ‘your family is not leaving this school.’ I wouldn’t be standing where I am today only for what he did.

“My mum got a job as a housekeeper in Donnybrook and [dad] slowly got back on his feet, working as a salesman for an import distribution company. It all had a big impact on me for sure: My dad turned to alcohol for a while and I grew up telling myself, that’s never going to happen to me. For a long time, I thought you can never have enough, I was always saving for a rainy day. And rainy days keep recurring. Life has a way of kicking you.”

GETTING RID OF THE DEAD LANDLORDS

One of Meehan’s first moves in the Park was to remove its extensive vintage art collection and replace it with his own very impressive collection of modern works, including giants of the contemporary art world, Sean Scully chief among them. Meehan’s obsession with art arose from his mother’s quest for betterment and self-improvement: “With her first paypacket as a house cleaner, she bought a set of Maurice MacGonigal watercolours, they are very lovely.”

The work is still ongoing but repeat visitors will register dramatic change immediately, the old oil portraits of august former rulers of the Anglo-Irish ascendency banished forever. Now, a deeply emotive piece by US artist Theaster Gates, made from the hose of a fire truck, dominates over the reception hall: “It was time to get rid of the ‘dead landlords’ from Irish walls,” grins Meehan with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“I wanted to put up the work that has inspired me, much of it from my own home in San Francisco. I took one that had hung for years above the bed of one of my daughters [Liliane Tomasko’s The Fastening] and I still don’t think she’s forgiven me.”

Meehan met his wife, Tara, while he was working for Guinness. They moved to London together, where their three daughters were born.

“I met Ali and Bono through an Irish friend in London and they were intrigued by what I had done with Fresh and Wild and thought I could help them with Nude, a brand they owned. I suggested natural skincare. It was a bit before its time, all-natural skincare, very eco-friendly. And that took me to America where we decided to launch it in 2007.”

By 2009, after the global crash, Nude was just about washing its face so he and Hewson sold up. Living in San Francisco, he was sitting one day in the iconic Ferry Building.

“I really liked the coffee and called up the owner, James Freeman, to see what he was up to, and he was looking to sell his [then tiny] company. And so I did a deal with him where he stayed on as CEO, and I came in as chairman, a very good partnership.”

Blue Bottle Coffee eventually led to a big payday for Meehan but, inspired in particular by his family, he was beginning his journey back to Ireland.

“I do a lot of work in climate change and a friend, [environmentalist] Paul Hawken, says when you ask ‘what one thing can I do?’ to address the issues, the one thing everyone can do is get back to nature, even a walk in the forest. There is no rain in California, and I was thinking about Ireland with plenty of green grass and water and wanted to do something there.”

His ‘green dreaming’ led to the purchase of Dromgarriff in 2012, including its ancient Irish oak forest. In a short space of time he has reinvented it as a remarkable hybrid eco-project with a hospitality element grafted on.

“I fell in love with the land, not the house, and then after I purchased, with Dromgarriff’s rich history. Walking on the land, it just hits you. So we began clearing all the non-native trees and the rhododendrons — they create very acidic soil which affects insects and bio-diversity — and now after 18 months, the birds are starting to sing.”

A COMMUNITY HOTEL THAT HAPPENS TO BE FIVE-STAR

And then Park Hotel Kenmare came on the market: “I had stayed a couple of times and I was always intrigued. But in 2015, I had begun a change in my ambitions, in what I wanted from life and that came about through my kids. They were being educated in progressive colleges in the States and would come home and argue with me in a very beautiful way, educating me. They were quite anti-capitalist, and to cut a long story short, said I needed to stop acquiring stuff. It was obviously from my childhood, that I enjoyed buying and acquiring, but that is not good for the planet and the community. So we all made a family agreement that we wouldn’t do anything more without checking in with the whole family. They were all very keen to do Dromgarriff but when I told my daughter about the Park, she wouldn’t speak to me for a day; she said we don’t need to buy a hotel.”

But a visit changed her mind.

“She said the hotel can help Dromgarriff and vice versa, and most of all it could help the community. She is very anti five star hotels and elite places that were closed to the community. And then there is this whole thing about her Irishness that was getting stronger and stronger and calling her back. She felt OK with us buying the Park, but as long as it became something that was very much central to the community of Kenmare and not exclusive. I remember going to the Carlyle [hotel] in New York for a cup of tea, and they said, ‘do you have a reservation, are you resident?’ I don’t want to go to the hotel and have to answer four or five questions to get in, so we saw the Park as a community hotel that happens to be five star, and my daughter is very keen on finding a more ethical way of doing business than the old neoliberal capitalism model.”

At the time of the purchase, the Park was exclusively open to residents, a pandemic measure which never lifted. The first thing the Meehans did was throw a huge party with food and drink for the locals, with up to 800 people coming from all around.

“It was crazy, I didn’t think twice about doing it. I’ve always done community events with Blue Bottle but a lot of the five stars in Ireland are not linked enough to community.”

KEEPING IT REAL

The newly rechristened Sean Scully dining room now hosts Meehan’s highly impressive collection of the artist’s work and the Landline restaurant, named after Scully’s 2017 painting, Landline Edge. A regal space peering down to the gardens and Kenmare Bay, it now seems lighter, looser, even if still questing for certain elements to definitively bridge its innate architectural grandeur with the new modernist ‘guests’ on its walls.

Change is also afoot on the plate, new head chef James O’Sullivan helming a revitalised kitchen, and nailing each finely balanced and well executed dish with precision, cooking well-sourced produce to a standard that will certainly intrigue Michelin inspectors … except Meehan isn’t overly exercised about the pursuit of stars.

“In terms of food and Michelin, I’m not so much into the tasting menus and those elements of fine dining as I’m more interested in a food system that is sourced locally. No glyphosates, pesticides, herbicides and I want to build up a natural wine list alongside the conventional list, that people will recognise as the best natural wine list in an Irish five star, so the Michelin Green Star [for a sustainable restaurant] is what intrigues me most.”

Meehan’s respect for the Brennan brothers’ achievements at the Park is sincere, but equally he and his family have their own vision.

“The spirit of Irish hospitality is very much at play in the Park. I’m always fishing for feedback from guests and what I hear most is about the team, the quality of the team working there for 40 years, that’s what you want to keep.

“But I also want to move into a new chapter, such as the art, and to evolve things while still holding on to the magical feel. To make rooms as comfortable as possible without being soulless and exclusive. Keeping it real is my gauge for change. I would have wanted my mother to walk up and feel welcome, and not have them checking out the kind of car I drove.

“Community, openness, sustainability — these are the driving goals. True sustainability is very challenging to achieve for a hotel that age, and I’m astounded by how hard it is to get organic produce in Kerry, but we hope to help change that. I would love the Park to be seen in Ireland and around the world as an example of best practice in genuine sustainability in a five star establishment.”