Beekman Boys Bring Lifestyle Luxe to Boston's Lenox Hotel

A huge custom-made hutch stands in the lobby of Boston's Lenox Hotel, laden with an array of appealing lifestyle accessories -- everything from jars of Beekman 1802's farm-produced honey and pasta sauce to cough drops to the company's luxurious skin care products to a custom-made candle designed to throw off a lustrous gold light as the candle burns low, the flame reflecting off the vessel's opulent interior. The hutch constitutes the brand's one-of-a-kind pop-up store in New England, a retail opportunity that will be available through the holiday season.

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, the "boys" behind Beekman 1802, have partnered with the Lenox to provide guests of America's original boutique hotel with superior amenities, right down to the soap in the bathrooms.

Beekman 1802 was the result of both men losing their jobs in the wake of the Great Recession. Faced with the possibility of foreclosure on their farm, Josh and Brent moved there full time and threw themselves into the business of making a new, profitable venture out of it. Instead of growing corn or soybeans, though, they turned to raising goats and exploring what they could invent -- or re-invent -- for the home and self-care market.

Their creativity resulted in a modern-day Almanac, as well as goods that have rustic origins but also meet the demands of a sophisticated modern customer. Their product lines -- for sale at their store in Sharon Springs, New York, and online, as well as at the popup store in the Lenox -- carry a sheen of deep-rooted American self-sufficiency. There is something comforting in the solidity and character of goods created on a family-run farm.

"I think that people do want to shed some of the consumerism and excess we've picked up in the last quarter century, but I also don't think people want to drop off the grid," Josh told EDGE. "That's why we talk about how we bring a little bit of country to the city, and a little bit of city to the country. It's all about balance."

"This kind of swing of the pendulum really goes back to the recession," Bret added. "All of those intangible things that people didn't understand that led to the downfall of everything. I think as a result, people wanted to touch, and feel, and understand the way things are created -- the way value is created. I think that's why our brand resonates with so many people: We create things and talk about the people who are making it, and the detail of what goes into the things that we create -- actual, beautiful things that are meant to last forever."

Given a growing awareness of ecological issues, sustainability is another chord Josh and Brent have had the foresight to touch in the culture.

"It's not a 100% either-or situation," Brent noted. "You don't only have to shop at a farmers' market, or only to go farm-to-table restaurants, or only grow your own food. Just taking little steps, eating from local farms one or two nights a week can help to make a huge change."

"Even here at the Lenox Hotel, they asked us to bring our hotel amenities - which we make using the goat's milk -- into all of their rooms, and they also asked if we could design a system so they wouldn't have to use the little bottles that he products [traditionally] come in. Over the course of a year that's going to save about 200,000 bottles from going into the landfill.

"And the other thing about the amenities is that because it' a commodity product -- it's something you're giving away from free -- so many hotel amenities are outsourced to China, because that's where it's made cheapest. But all of our products are made right in upstate New York. The Lenox Hotel is putting its name and reputation behind our American-made products."

The hotel's status as a singular, family owned property gives the Lenox the agility to forge such a unique partnership, Dan Donahue, VP and Managing Director for the Lenox told EDGE. "A large chain property wouldn't be nimble enough to work out these arrangements and just go for it," he said. "We knew we wanted to work with Beekman 1802 and in a matter of weeks we were visiting Josh and Brent at their farm in New York. Everything just fell into place naturally for both of us."

The Beekman Boys were at the Lenox to celebrate the exclusive partnership between their brand and the hotel, and also to show off a new line of linens and other home goods (now available at Bloomingdale's), as well as to sign copies of their new book, "Style."

Beekman 1802 offers what you might call an immersive home and lifestyle experience. The Lenox's newly renovated Back Bay suite now comes complete with a queen-size bed outfitted with Beekman 1802 linens. The bed was plush with a comfortable pile of pillows. The heavy, handsome fabrics of the coverlet and the pillowcases -- complete with buttons on the backs of the pillowcases to secure them -- contrasted in feel and weight with the silky-soft sheets. The Back Bay suite now has the distinction of coming equipped with Beekman linens on a permanent basis. (The hotel's other rooms do not offer Beekman 1802 linens, but they are supplied with the brand's soaps, lotions, lotions, and shampoos.)

"What we'll often do is look back through textile archives," Brent revealed, "and look at various elements of those textiles and then replicate them for the things that we're doing. We have one set of sheets with a hem that was replicated from a 1900-era child's petticoat. That was a hem that, in the early 1900s, some woman sat there and stitched in all of those eyelets in that hem. We re-created that.

"In all of our linens we used washed percale cotton, which is a really tight weave of cotton. It feels instantly like it's been run through the washing machine 100 times. Again, that's because we want that heirloom quality to it. We really studied the weave structure so that you can put those sheets into a hope chest and a hundred years from now, when someone pulls it out, it's still going to be a beautiful set of linens.

"Whether it's a food item or a piece of furniture we're creating," Brent summed up, "it's all inspired by the life on our farm in Sharon Springs, New York."

"That's the difference between us and other lifestyle brands," Josh put in. "A lot of lifestyle brands call themselves 'storytellers.' We are story livers; we're actually living the story that we're putting out there. The food we produce is in our refrigerator. The furniture we create is what we like for our home."

"I look this good because I use our skin care line," Brent cracked. But for all the laughter that comment provoked, he had a point; both men seemed radiant with good health and good cheer.

This merging of traditional farming arts and craftsmanship in the areas of food, furniture, linens, and more, together with 21st century media savvy, is part and parcel of the Beekman brand, which includes "The Beekman 1802 Cookbook" and "The Bucolic Plague," a memoir of their transition from Manhattan to the farming life, as well as their Almanac. Both partners also maintain blogs. But Josh and Brent maintain a media presence that extends past print to television. "The Fabulous Beekman Boys," a reality show about the two men -- who are partners in life as well as in business -- airs on the Cooking Channel. The duo also won "The Amazing Race" in 2012.

"We always say that we look at traditional life and then modernize it," Josh told EDGE. "I think that so much of what we focus on is making sure things are not disposable, whether it's furniture that we're designing, or a book that we create, like the Almanac -- which we created on great paper with evergreen content, so that it would be something that you wanted to keep for a long time -- because we ourselves are tired of a throwaway society, and we feel consumers are also getting tired of living in a throwaway society.

"Value comers from the type of memories that a product helps create, and that's why we call so many of the things we do 'heirloom quality.' Not only are they meant to last from one generation to the next, but they are meant to be so distinctive, so well thought-out, and so well-made that it's going to help you create a memory around it. There's nothing that is more valuable than memory."

For more information about Beekman 1802, please visit http://beekman1802.com