A group of Kentucky investors has acquired roughly 160 acres of the storied Hermitage Farm in Goshen, including the Barn8 restaurant, while the longtime owners who spent more than a decade turning the Oldham County property into a hospitality destination will keep running the working horse farm next door. The sale, covering about a quarter of the farm's nearly 700-acre footprint, marks the biggest ownership shift at the historic property in over a decade.
Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, who co-founded 21c Museum Hotels, announced the sale of the farm's hospitality operations in January, according to The Courier-Journal. The buying group includes bourbon brand founders Cara Osborne and Steve Brooks, Blue Equity, Auctus Point Holdings, The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, and former University of Louisville basketball star Russ Smith. Osborne and Brooks, who founded the bourbon label Blaize & Brooks, acquired roughly one-fourth of the farm's overall footprint as part of the deal, the paper reports.
A Restaurant Born From a Century-Old Barn
Barn8, the farm-to-table restaurant at the center of the sale, was created when Wilson and Brown renovated a century-old horse and dairy barn into a dining destination. The farm is in Goshen, as reported by The Courier-Journal.
The Indigo Road Hospitality Group took an equity stake in the deal and assumed culinary and venue operations at Barn8 and Hermitage Farm afterward. Smith founded Mr. & Mrs. Bourbon Company in 2019 and now holds more than 100,000 barrels through partnerships with Kentucky distillers, according to Mr. & Mrs. Bourbon Company.
New Investors Talk Preservation, Not Transformation
Osborne, who grew up in Eastern Kentucky and became a midwife, told the Courier-Journal that Hermitage Farm is not simply a property or a hospitality business, but a living expression of Kentucky. She and her husband co-founded Blaize & Brooks after Osborne was inspired by reading Fred Minnick's book Whiskey Women while teaching an entrepreneurship class, according to the Bourbon Women Association.
Matt Case, a representative of Auctus Point Holdings, framed the investment similarly, telling the paper that it is about preservation and careful investment and that Hermitage Farm cannot be recreated once lost. The investment group believes the farm can become a more meaningful economic, agricultural and cultural anchor for Oldham County and Kentucky, and plans to preserve its character going forward, per the same report.
Jonathan Blue, who chairs Blue Equity, is among the investors in the deal. Wilson and Brown founded 21c Museum Hotels, which operated eight hotels before AccorHotels agreed to acquire the company in July 2018, according to Accor.
Hermitage Farm's Thoroughbred Operation
Hermitage Farm has a working thoroughbred operation.
What Stays the Same
Despite the new ownership, Wilson and Brown will continue to retain and care for the working horse farm and adjacent land, keeping the thoroughbred operation under their stewardship even as the hospitality side changes hands.
