From Kenmare to New York: The Kerry man designing the world's most glamorous spaces

The Kenmare native, who launched Bryan O’Sullivan Studio in 2013 and this month released his debut book A New Glamour, returns to his Kerry roots when he wants to devise a good game plan.

It helps that he has his dad on speed dial, former GAA footballer, coach, and manager Mickey Ned O’Sullivan.

Bryan says his All-Ireland-winning father is “a Yoda-like figure” in the office.

Mickey Ned flits between his base in Kenmare to his son’s HQ in London and New York studio to impart “his wisdom and positivity in seminars and one-on-one catch-ups with our designers”, says Bryan.

“He brings an incredible balance and I’m very blessed to have him as a dad guiding me both personally and professionally,” he adds.

The All-Star, who once captained his home county to victory in Croke Park, is now coaching creative teams to global glory.

“My dad taught me how everyone’s opinion matters,” says Bryan. “And that’s especially true of our office, where we have cultivated an atmosphere of respect and camaraderie — no rigid hierarchies and no bad ideas. Everyone’s opinion matters. Day to day, we try to keep work as uplifting as possible.

“It helps everyone feel heard. His experience as a football coach means he is good at dealing with teams and at how to make a team happy — and actually, it really works.

“In 11 years we’ve kept most of our staff. It gives a better vibe. One of my goals when opening my own studio was for people not to have that fear of going to work on a Monday.”

Bryan O’Sullivan Studio has a staff of 70 in both central London and New York City working with clients globally. Projects span residential, hospitality, restaurants, bars, and maritime, ranging from a family house for a prominent restaurateur to a Fifth Avenue apartment in New York, and a historic early 1900s hotel particulier in Paris’s 16th arrondissement.

FROM KENMARE TO NEW YORK

Before establishing his own firm, Bryan worked in Paris as well as London and New York.

But we have to circle back to his hometown of Kenmare, with its “emphasis on art, culture, and craftsmanship” because these influenced Bryan and his only sibling, his brother Éamonn as they were growing up, says the interior designer.

Éamonn, a graphic designer and his wife Liz, of Anchor Studio in Kenmare, have designed the book A New Glamour and Éamonn has also done a lot of branding for the studio, reveals Bryan.

“Our office has truly become a family affair,” says the interior designer.

Bryan dedicates his book to his husband, Dublin native James and their son Cosmo, aged one, as well as his father and his mother Marian — the latter “who always encouraged me to follow my dreams”, he adds.

Bryan and his husband — singer and musician James O’Neill — who also works with the studio, were married in 2019 in Ballynahinch Castle, where Bryan has also done a lot of design work over the years.

James steers the studio’s commercial development but doubles as “my design eyes and ears”, adds Bryan.

“Nobody charms our clients or our team quite like James, whose taste is always in step with my own and without whom I’d be lost,” says Bryan.

Marian, Bryan’s mother, is also a mainstay of to Bryan’s work and studio.

Marian and Mickey Ned, a retired teacher, ran several hospitality businesses including a bar, restaurant, and coffee shop in Kenmare in former years.

“They’re out of the hospitality side of things now, but I grew up steeped in it,” says Bryan.

“When we were kids she [Marian] was a total boss, juggling home life and her many businesses, always updating our house and the cafe and delicatessen that she and my dad owned in Kenmare. When they opened a restaurant and bar, in 1999, she let me be involved in all the design decisions.

“It’s nice, now, when designing for the hospitality sector to have a good understanding of how a kitchen works.

“My mother also ran our family restaurant and bar in Kenmare; she would have more or less run all the hospitality projects — she was a great businesswoman. She helped hugely on the finance side of things when we were starting off.”

THREE LAKES HOTEL

Marian, in turn, grew up in the hospitality business. Her father, Michael King, owned several hotels along the Ring of Kerry including the famous Three Lakes Hotel in Killarney.

Bryan’s Currow-based maternal grandfather was also a self-taught architect/designer.

“He started life in an orphanage — both his parents died when he was very young — and set out to London with his brother when he was just a teenager, working on building sites and becoming a draughtsman,” says Bryan.

In his 20s he moved back to Ireland and started his own construction firm, eventually opening a series of hotels along the Ring of Kerry including the former Three Lakes Hotel in Killarney.

“It was really, really cool, with lots of Scandinavian chairs and flat wood veneers. Those spaces opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of what a room could become.

“My earliest memories of design were at his own house in Currow.

“He spent a lot of time drawing in his studio, which was filled with remnants of old statues and sections of stained glass that he had salvaged while restoring local churches. For a boy like me, it felt like Aladdin’s cave. I would sketch alongside him. He would teach me about floor plans and elevations.

“That was my initial crash course in architecture, though it would be years before I seriously considered it as a profession.”

Bryan’s love of art continued during his second-level education as a boarder at Castleknock College in Dublin.

“It was my favourite subject,” he says. “I used to be sneaking out of other subjects and into art classes,” he says. “Or if I was kicked out of another class for talking I’d sneak into the art room and the art teacher Miss Nolan would let me sit at the back.”

Bryan’s third-level studies, initially in architecture, eventually led him to London, “first to the University of Greenwich for part one of my training and then to the University of Westminster for part two”, he says.

“In the UK, becoming an architect requires a three-part track, though I never completed my part three, instead falling in love with interior design and diving directly into work.”

Bryan completed a stint at Selldorf Architects in New York City which left a huge impression. “I was completely in awe of Annabelle Selldorf — her vision, her sophistication, her consistency,” he says.

German-born New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf, who pens the foreword for A New Glamour, notes how Bryan “brings a global perspective to his projects”: “It seems to me that in these pages you can see that; what jumps out is his compassion and interest in people and creating environments that are playful and fun — truly liveable.”

GORDON RAMSAY

After Westminster, Bryan was hired as a design assistant at David Collins Studio, in Chelsea, London. “I was dazzled by everything, but especially by David. He was always around, sprinkling his magic dust on projects from conception to completion. Like me, he was Irish and gay, so we had that in common. I was constantly amazed by his knowledge of design history and did my best to keep up,” says Bryan.

The studio’s commissions ranged from restaurants for Gordon Ramsay to high-end private residences.

From there, Bryan moved to Paris to work for Luis Laplace, a former Selldorf colleague where he took on his first major residential job — a house for the bass guitarist of a major Irish global rock band. “He was a dream client, with incredible taste and high expectations, always keeping me on my toes,” he adds.

The opportunity to launch his studio came in 2013, when his now-husband and business partner James introduced him to his first clients, a couple with a new home in Ibiza. “We tackled the interiors, mixing mid-century and modernist furniture,” says Bryan.

Out of that project came two more: their ski chalet in Courchevel and yacht. “We’ve been working together ever since, and I’m so grateful for their unflinching belief in our studio. They connected us with their friends — another couple — who have also become repeat clients, enlisting us to do the most incredible array of homes around the world. Those introductions changed my life,” says Bryan.

Things took another exciting turn when Bryan met Paddy McKillen, at the time one of the owners of the Maybourne Hotel Group and a patron of the arts. “He was the brain that personally chose the architects and designers to leave their mark on Maybourne’s historic London properties: Claridge’s, The Connaught, and The Berkeley,” adds Bryan.

Today, he works across the globe on houses in the Hamptons, Mexico, and Bel Air, as well as hospitality commissions, including a complete renovation of the Shore Club in Miami and a new resort in Hawaii. “What a difference a decade brings,” says Bryan.

Along the way, his London office has relocated from Bryan and James’s apartment to a shared workspace in Dalston, then to Shoreditch, and finally to the current space near the Barbican, where the couple and their son live.

Bryan is rightly proud of studio milestones such as seeing the studio feature in Architectural Digest, making the prestigious AD100 list, and the 1stDibs 50 list; receiving the 2020 Elle Decoration Designer of the Year honour; scooping a 2022 GQ Food & Drink Award for the Red Room and 2020 Bar of the Year award for The Berkeley Bar & Terrace, and launching a debut furniture collection.

But, on another level, Bryan has never left his home county. “At heart, I’m still that kid drawing in my grandad’s studio,” he says.

A New Glamour, written by Bryan O’Sullivan and Samuel Cochran, is published by Rizzoli