In December Albany Business Review reported that Beekman 1802, the beloved lifestyle company located on a historic farm in Sharon Springs, was acquired by Eurazeo, a French investment group, in a $92 million acquisition that will propel the brand into global growth.
Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, the stars of reality TV show The Fabulous Beekman Boys, co-founded Beekman 1802 in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Recession, when the duo left the City and purchased a goat farm upstate New York – Kilmer-Purcell documented the story in “The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir” published in 2011.
Once in the country, Kilmer-Purcell (a writer) and Ridge (a physician) came to the realization that they better make the farm profitable if they were to keep it. And soon their goat milk bar soap was to become a sensation among people interested in skincare products. By launching a fast-growing lifestyle brand, Kilmer-Purcell and Ridge energized and revitalized the entire town – their story has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show, and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. The duo has also published several cookbooks including “The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook” (2013), “The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook” (2014), and “Beekman 1802: A Seat at the Table” (2017), all inspired by their Upstate New York farm lifestyle.
Reporting on the recent acquisition, Forbes remarks that Beekman’s “from-the-farm, friend-get-a-friend style of marketing is ready to reach across the globe.”
We will be following their next chapter.
Simona David Consulting 