The rise of the home-grown, super luxury retreat. It's a place where forest bathing, sauna and yoga form the activities within a pristine Irish rainforest along the Wild Atlantic Way, where owner, entrepreneur Brian Meehan, who also owns The Park Hotel in Kenmare, tried the property out before he bought it.
When Brian Meehan bought Dromgarriff Rainforest, he operated a try-before-you-buy approach by requesting to stay the night at the property to see and feel it.
It’s a smart move that few actually get to make.
Meehan bought it in 2022 from a German advertising executive, Robert Putz.
It had previously been on the market, but no one else viewed it as a place to earth yourself, cashing in on the trend towards wellness.
Back in 2009, it had been seeking €9.3 million.
This included a nine-hole par 66 Glengarriff Golf Club, opened in 1989 by its patron, the Hollywood actress, Maureen O’Hara.
Brian and his wife, Tara, now run it as a high-end wellness retreat.
Set on about 50 acres of Irish rainforest, it includes a river running through it, the Barony, complete with a waterfall that in the summer season you can submerge yourself in, hiking trails, a seashore sauna and a yoga room.
Based between California and London, Brian wanted a place to go in Ireland, Tara explains.
“It needed to be on the bay. A friend was offered this and suggested it to Brian.”
“I need to spend the night,” is what he said to the agent.
He had to check out the water, Tara explains, something he does before the purchase of every property they’ve made.
A self-professed mermaid, she is known to disappear from a party and can usually be found in the water, taking a breather.
“If there’s a party and a body of water, Brian knows where to find me.”
The estate comprises five houses, all named after trees.
Silver Birch and Linden are the larger of the properties with respectively 11 and 10 bedrooms.
The other three, Holly, Maple and Aspen, all have three bedrooms. These can be rented separately or together.
The Linden, where the yoga room is located, has been completely refurbished, designed by Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects in Japan, a practice Meehan has worked with for decades, and which represented Japan at the 2021 Venice Biennale.
Meehan has been on a spending spree.
A year after the Drumgarriff purchase, hoteliers Francis and John Brennan and investor Fergal Naughton sold the 46-room The Park in Kenmare to him.
Nagasaka is overseeing the highly anticipated redesign of its spa.
Wellness and natural beauty are key driving forces behind Meehan’s success. In 1998, he set up Fresh & Wild, an organic food store in London.
It grew to seven outlets in London and Bristol by 2004, with Meehan selling it to the American retailing group Whole Foods for €32 million (US $38 million).
In 2007, he followed this by setting up a cosmetics company called Nude with Paddy McKillen Snr and Ali Hewson, Bono’s wife, producing chemical-free make-up.
It was sold to LMVH and later taken over by Beautycounter.
He then moved on to Blue Bottle Coffee, investing in the business and then raising huge sums of money to fund its growth, with Bono among the backers.
In 2017, Nestle paid US $500 million for a 68 per cent stake in the business.
Meehan stayed on as chief executive for three years and remains on the Swiss giant’s sustainability board.
The night he stayed over to try the space before he might buy it, he walked up the Barony River to the waterfall, something that is far easier now that a path has been laid.
“In summer, you can slip behind the curtain. In spring, the river is simply too strong,” Tara counsels.
When Brian was doing due diligence on the property, he came across the late Andrew St Ledger from the Woodland League, who explained that it was an ancient Irish oak wood rainforest — one of the last remaining temperate rainforests.
“There is a lowering of energy here,” she continues.
“It is a place to be still, as you enter at the top and weave your way down through the trees to the sauna on the beach.”
The couple have three daughters, so the purchase doubles as a retreat for the family to gather with extended family and friends.
“It’s a place for us, where we come with family. It is sheltered and stays here, eats, plays cards, and games; we're close-knit as a family. The girls are half Irish.
"It's important to ground them and come back to Ireland. The old ways are more present here than in many countries,” Tara explains.
Simon Paul, the interior designer the couple brought on board, used a white Osmo oil to wash the timber beams and vaulted ceilings.
The large gable windows, which look great on drawings and in pictures, are hard to create treatments for.
They have to be bespoke, so he’s created these swishy curtains from linen that have double tiebacks to hold them in place and once opened drop theatrically, like the curtain falling at the end of a performance, when you want to shut the outside out.
Art is used to decorate Silver Birch. Its pieces include Willie Doherty’s Show of Strength, Callum Ines, Mary McCarthy, Richard Gorman and Brian McGuire’s rainforest paintings.
Many of the artists are friends, Tara explains.
“Brian has come to stay. And we have other artists do retreats in the smaller houses.”
The house also showcases Brian’s mother’s collection.
“In Linden, we decided to allow the view to be the art. There are so many angles out of the living room, we thought the one Anoushka Mirchandani piece was a beautiful statement.”
On request, instructors working at their other property, The Park, will come over to give a class. Sound healing, too.
Some people come to lead retreats on yoga or breathwork, she explains. Wild Routes is an organisation that they work with.
They can organise group trips where individuals join and feature activities that include basketweaving, storytelling and musicians, along with trails, treks and drives through some of the country's most spellbinding scenery.
There are two upcoming trips, from June 29th to July 9th and from August 31st to September 10th. Both include stays at Dromgarriff Rainforest.
Everyone sleeps so well here, Tara says. “We all get extra hours of shuteye – even Brian, who is up before the dawn.
“It’s a very mystical, grounding and mysterious place. There are lots of trails to explore,” Brian explains.
Dromgarriff Rainforest properties can be rented together or separately. Per week, the two large houses, Silver Birch and Linden, cost €11,000, while Aspen and Maple cost €1,350 and Holly, €2,240. These are low-season prices, which end May 31st.
