In the mid-1990s, Linda and Gary Dower took notice of America’s resorts and spas. Although set in idyllic destinations, they didn’t quite encompass the Dowers’ idea of hospitality.
The couple took matters into their own hands and assembled a plan that essentially reverse engineered the resort spa. The result was a guest-centered, balanced experience, now known as Mirbeau Inn & Spa.
“That’s how we got to the way that we create our spas, which are really the emotional heartbeat of the Mirbeau concept and our properties,” said Jonathan T. Dal Pos, Mirbeau Hospitality Services partner/general counsel and son of Linda and Gary.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Michael J. Dal Pos, Linda Dower, Gary Dower and Jonathan T. Dal Pos
The first Mirbeau Inn & Spa opened in 2000 in the small village of Skaneateles in the Finger Lakes region of New York, which just happened to be where the family is from.
“[Linda and Gary’s] idea was to bring those destination hospitality places closer to where the people actually were because our lives have become so frantic,” Dal Pos said. “Communication and technology have made us plugged in all the time. People need the ability to get away and to balance their lives. It would be a lot easier to do that if we could bring that destination’s hospitality experience to where people live so they could get away for a couple of days and do it often throughout the year as part of their balanced life.”
So what was it about America’s spas that ignited the Dowers to create their own, elevated version? According to Dal Pos and his brother, Mirbeau Hospitality Services CEO Michael J. Dal Pos, these spas oftentimes felt separated and transactional.
“One of the major things was, back in the day, once men and women entered the spa, they would go their separate ways and never see each other again for the rest of the experience,” Jonathan Dal Pos explained. “We like spouses and partners to have a fun experience together and to be able to be with each other, which is kind of the whole point of being there throughout their spa time.”
A Mirabeau Inn & Spa Plymouth spa resting area
Mirbeau has unisex rooms or resting areas, where both genders can relax together and be with each other before a treatment. They also offer couples’ treatments and their signature Aqua Terraces, an outdoor oasis offering a hot spa pool with massage jets, fountain heads, oversized fireplace and a food and service bar featuring small plates and beverages.
“The other thing [Linda and Gary] noticed was that most spas were set up very transactionally—you walk in, get your robe, get your massage and then are back in the parking lot in an hour and a half. It almost feels like a doctor’s appointment,” Michael Dal Pos said. “You’re not having your teeth cleaned. We do the opposite.”
Mirbeau encourages people to spend the day or a long period of time at its properties, which both Dal Poses think is what sets Mirbeau apart from other spas.
“They also sized their spas differently,” Michael Dal Pos explained. “The Skaneateles property has 34 guestrooms and 14 treatment rooms. Normally, a 34-room property would have four treatment rooms for a spa. With 14, they were not just after the overnight guest, but they were looking to create a regional getaway experience for day spa guests.”
In summer 2014, the second Mirbeau Inn & Spa opened in Plymouth, MA, in the Boston-South Shore area within a master-planned community.
The Plymouth, MA, property was the second Mirbeau Inn & Spa.
“It’s about 40 minutes south of Boston so it enables us to capture that south Boston/Cape Cod area,” Jonathan Dal Pos explained. “We then were able to test out something that we wanted to try. Our spas are in such high demand everywhere, so we thought about creating a model that was essentially a day resort, which was the spa, the restaurant and the retail component—everything except the hotel.”
Introducing the day spa resort
Mirbeau’s day spa concept is the basis of its third location, the first Spa Mirbeau, which planted its roots in 2017 in the Crossgates Mall outside of Albany, NY.
Mirbeau’s day spa concept is the basis of its third location, the first Spa Mirbeau, which planted its roots in 2017 in the Crossgates Mall outside of Albany, NY.
“I think, in general, we’re a bit of a unicorn in the industry—especially the spa industry and certainly the resort industry,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “Most resorts use spas as a loss leader that’s just a great amenity to have. We see it as a huge revenue generator.”
The day spa concept has certainly proven successful for Mirbeau. Jonathan Dal Pos said that more than 60% of its spa guests are not overnight guests but day resort guests, who typically spend six hours on-site.
“Most day resort guests will come and have a spa treatment, have lunch and enjoy the Aqua Terrace,” Michael said. “We also have the retail component when they checkout or before they enter, where we have our own private-label body products, and we’re about to launch our own private-label skincare line. There are a number of different [revenue]avenues. We also have fitness, yoga and a gym set up that any day guest or overnight guest can use.”
In the summer of 2019, Mirbeau Inn & Spa brought its third resort and fourth property to the Rhinebeck, NY, which serves the NYC Metro area, the Hudson Valley and the Albany Capital District.
A Mirbeau Inn & Spa Rhinebeck guestroom
“That had been a property that we were working on for a number of years,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “Rhinebeck was a fantastic day visit for the New York Metro area but didn’t have quality hotel rooms to keep day guests within the town and county. The village was anxious to get a high-end player involved, and we plugged in perfectly there.”
Plans for the future
The future is bright for Mirbeau as it plans to roll out a pipeline of resorts in the Northeast over the next 10 years, the next one breaking ground this fall in Beacon, NY.
“We don’t like to hop markets,” Michael Dal Pos explained. “We like to expand within a three-four-hour driving distance from one of our other properties. We don’t want to reinvent ourselves in each new market and find that distance allows enough people in those areas to hear about us and tell other people about us. From a management point of view, it allows our teams to help out [other properties]. What we’re looking for is to grow organically from our current locations. We have plans to grow up and down the East Coast north of Boston and then down south by NYC.”
Jonathan Dal Pos added that Mirbeau’s sweet spot is an existing weekend town within a driving distance to a major metropolitan center.
Mirbeau properties are set up as an affordable luxury that allows guests to go multiple times a year. This helps the company service a broad base and not target too narrow an audience.
“We’ve noticed our demographic is starting to get a bit younger, and the concept was, in many ways, created around the demands of the baby boomer generation,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “That’s the dominant demographic that we have, but the next biggest demographic is millennials. We see a lot of that generation starting to be interested, and I think they understand the idea of balance a little bit better than their parents and older generations did. Also, the male audience has become way more comfortable with the spa setting and activities.”
Balance is key for the company, creating spaces to not only relax and unwind, but to savor life. This is the model for Mirbeau as the experience includes everything from spa treatments to on-site dining and retail.
“Our approach to spa and wellness is a bit different than other spas out there,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “In our industry, there are spa retreats that are very regimented. They give you a piece of kale every four hours and then send you off on some wellness adventure. There’s a place in the industry for that, but that just isn’t what we do. We see wellness as not just a physical thing, it’s mental as well. Our wellness approach is all about balance. We want you to take a fitness class, have a massage, take a steam and have a burger and a glass of wine. It’s a more full, holistic approach.”
Passion play
The Mirbeau mindset is something that the Dal Poses developed early on, always having a hand in the family business.
“Since I was 10 or so, we’ve been working at the properties in one way or another, either raking leaves and picking stuff out of the ponds, and then got promoted to front desk and other positions,” Michael Dal Pos said. “We all just have a passion for it. We want to bring our sense of wellness and balance to other people. We know how hectic our lives are, and we want to create places that people can get away, unwind and relax. We have a big passion for that and continue building that kind of environment for people.”
The Mirbeau Inn & Spa in Rhinebeck, NY, opened in 2019.
Michael Dal Pos, who came from the finance world, returned to the family business to get back to the passion he grew up with.
“I didn’t want to continue that career because I wasn’t building anything; I was just buying and selling things,” he said. “I had an opportunity to come back and work for the family business and take more of a corporate, financial view of the company, and I think that has really helped us grow. Our parents really have a passion for concepts and lifestyle but maybe less so about the actual nuts and bolts of operations and the financial side of it. Each person in the family brings a different strength into the business that creates a powerful company and sets us up to grow.”
Jonathan Dal Pos shares the excitement for hospitality as well, adding, “I have a passion to deliver. I like to call it ‘places to be present.’ It’s such an important and undervalued facet in our lives. On the hospitality component, we’ve been lucky to travel a little bit as we grew up. In Europe and in other countries, hospitality is a profession. It’s something that people feel honored to care for other individuals.”
He believes that this sense of honor is lacking in the country, but the industry has the power to restore it.
“People resort to hospitality jobs as a second or third option, but we don’t believe in that,” he said. “We think there’s something honorable about caring for people, and we see it as a profession that we really want Americans to take to a little bit more than they do right now. That’s something we seek to grow.”
Michael Dal Pos explained that the company has been focused on training and elevating its service offerings, especially post-COVID.
“We’re a family and we want to treat our employees like family, so when COVID hit and everything shut down, the thing that most businesses did was let everyone go and try and fight another day, but we took a different approach,” he said. “We’re all in this together. We’re family, and we want to make sure we’re protecting our family, so none of our employees were let go. We paid everybody what they were making before everything shut down all through the pandemic.”
This came in handy post-COVID when everything reopened. The company didn’t have to start from scratch and find new employees, and the properties were able to get going quickly.
“Since then, we’ve been increasing our training standards, focusing on quality of service, and to do that, you have to have the best people,” Michael Dal Pos said. “We’re in regional markets. We need to find the best people and to do that, we need to have incentive programs. We want to be competitive in the area. We also have different loyalty programs where we give bonuses on anniversaries to foster longevity and that family feeling.”
Design is also a major component of the Mirbeau experience, with each location reflective of a different European destination.
“From the moment they pull in, I think most people would say, ‘OK, this is something very different than I’ve seen before,’” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “Our properties are inspired by chateaus in France. Each one is a bit different in order to fit the setting that it’s in.”
For example, the Skaneateles resort looks and feels like a rural, country French estate. Its Rhinebeck location is more reflective of an urban, Parisian location because it’s located in the middle of the village. The Plymouth property takes notes from a chateau estate that may be in the suburbs outside of Paris.
Mirbeau Inn & Spa Skaneateles’ bistro offers local fare.
“They’re meant to fit the setting but also be inspired by places that we envy in Europe that make you feel like you are somewhere else,” Jonathan Dal Pos said.
Mirbeau locations are essentially a local escape, with each property artfully blending local offerings with an off-site feel. More specially, its food and beverage programming delivers local, artisan produce and elements, but at the same time, the resort concept is aimed to not feel like you are where you are.
“It’s purposefully designed to feel like a high-end European-style getaway to make you feel like you’re somewhere different but didn’t have to travel far to get there,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “It’s part of the mental relaxation and feeling of getting away that we’re trying to deliver.”
At the same time, Michael Dal Pos said, Mirbeau is a major employer in these regional markets and aims to honor that.
“We try to be part of our community as much as possible and give different donations and give back,” he explained. “We want to be part of the community without replicating the exact look and feel of the community.”
Mirbeau also scales its properties to feel more residential, almost as if you’re walking into someone’s house in the European countryside.
“To date, all the design has been in-house,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “Our mother is a professionally trained interior designer out of Syracuse University. She has done everything for all of our resorts and properties.”
Beginning with its Beacon location, however, Mirbeau hired Sims Patrick Studio out of Atlanta, a firm that specializes in boutique hospitality properties similar in size and style to Mirbeau’s.
“We will be working closely with them,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “We don’t like to give up full reigns, so Linda will work very closely and have her hands in all the choices made. We worked with the same architect, Arrowstreet out of Boston, for our Plymouth, Rhinebeck and now Beacon locations. We use lot of the same teams.”
Mirbeau’s method is proving successful with projects ahead and more in store. The CEO refers to this time as “a turning point for the company.”
“Jonathan and I joined in our roles with the company in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015 and have been working on refining the concept and what this company is and how it operates,” he said. “Rhinebeck was the first resort property that we did with that concept in mind, and the model has now been proven out of something that can be repeated at other locations. We think this is the perfect time to focus on growth, and there are markets out there that are perfect for us.”
By 2030, he hopes to have 10 properties in operation, but the dream doesn’t stop there.
“Our goal is to expand beyond the physical properties and create a lifestyle brand of what Mirbeau is,” he said. “People may not have even come to one of our properties but follow us on social media, use our skincare products and come to us for lifestyle content.”
As Mirbeau expands its offerings, its leaders know that it is family and roots that make the company successful.
“The thing I’m most passionate about is doing projects that are special,” Jonathan Dal Pos said. “We’ll never be a company that rolls out 10 of these a year. We want to create highly specialized, focused, intentional properties. For that reason, we feel our family and partners need to be a part of the creation of each one of them.”
