Looking out at the yachts gliding on the water from the window of the Ritz-Carlton in Geneva, where he’s sitting with clients, who happen to be the owners of the five-star luxury hotel, Ryan Crown has just experienced another ‘pinch me ‘moment.
It’s a long way from Limavady to Lake Geneva, but somehow he’s got here through a combination of talent, hustle and hard work.
Just days later, he’s back in Crown Creative’s brightly lit design studio overlooking Hill Street in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, where the agency’s project wall includes framed images of a five-star resort in the Dominican Republic, a dog hotel in New York and a chippy in Galway.
The business, which was forged in New York City before relocating to Belfast amid the global catastrophe of Covid-19, now employs 25 people across offices in Belfast, New York and London.
For a small largely Belfast-based team to be designing and crafting the branding and surrounds of some of the world’s most luxurious hotels and restaurants isn’t strictly conventional, but then Ryan Crown’s career path never was.
“I thought I wanted to be an actor,” he recalls departing his Limavady home to study in Belfast.
But those creative juices were soon directed elsewhere. While his friends were working behind the counter in Centra and pouring pints in local pubs, the Co Derry student spent his days at Queen’s University designing websites and doing digital marketing for the likes of Bogart and Beannchor.
“My friends were earning minimum wage and I was sending invoices.”
Largely self-taught, he soon landed himself his “dream job” at The Lyric theatre as a digital marketer.
“But I was still hustling, creating websites in the evening. I just thought that was natural.”
Crown Creative relocated to the former AV Browne studio on Hill Street two years ago.
Two years into the job he took his first major punt in life, when he successfully sold himself to north Belfast pair Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry, who had just opened The Dead Rabbit pub in New York’s financial district.
“My first day in the job they were awarded the best bar in the world. I remember thinking ‘Christ, the shoes you have to fill’.”
In his first month, the Belfast founders were on the cover of Forbes magazine.
“I was sitting there thinking, six months ago I was sitting at home in Limavady and Belfast, now I’m in the heart of New York doing a photoshoot with Forbes. It felt crazy.”
Recalling the “wild ride” of those early days in New York, where he relocated with his partner Emma, he considers the decision to cross the Atlantic as “a complete game-changer and a gearshift”.
The Dead Rabbit was Ryan Crown’s first job in New York.
When The Dead Rabbit became part of the HPH Hospitality Group, Ryan found himself part of a much larger hospitality universe filled with Michelin starred restaurants and New York steak houses.
“I remember thinking this is an industry I love being in and a city I love being in.
“But you feel small in the vastness of New York. It was incredibly humbling.”
It was during a break driving down the west coast of the US with his partner Emma that he admitted out loud that he was thinking of leaving is job to set up his own company.
“The thing was, I was in my dream job, I was 27 years of age and completely in love with it.
The project wall at Crown Creative’s Hill Street studio.
“But my thoughts were if I don’t do this now, I’m never going to do it.
“It was the time to roll the dice.”
Ever the hustler, the Limavady man convinced his employer to convert his salary into a retainer for his burgeoning creative agency.
HPH went for it and became Crown Creative’s first client.
“We were working out of this tiny space, but we were working with a Michelin star restaurant, a huge food hall in the financial district and this incredible steak house.
“It just grew from there and good work gets you good work.”
A recent project Crown Creative did for the New York pizza and Italian restaurant group Seppe.
The agency’s reputation grew, and Crown Creative began to earn new clients outside HPH, including New York restaurant Seppe, which remains a client to this day.
After an early flirtation with all kinds of creative work to pay the bills, Ryan soon decided it was time to double down and focus on hospitality.
“Having that niche some people would tell you is bonkers because you close yourself off to so many industries. But for us, it has paid off.
“What has happened is that other industries have approached us to apply that hospitality thinking and hospitality mindset.”
Current clients include a very large UK real estate agency and a very well-known Belfast retailer.
Starbucks has also sought the design agency’s help.
In the spring of 2020, everything changed.
With coronavirus spreading and New York in lockdown, the couple decided to move home for six months until the smoke cleared.
“Five-and-a-half years later here we are,” he smiles.
“The quality of life here is fantastic. To be able to raise kids here and build a life here has been amazing.”
After effectively “falling off the face of the earth” in the post-pandemic world, which decimated many hospitality businesses, Ryan set about rebuilding his agency with Belfast as its new base.
Almost six years on, the small team has grown into a staff of 25 working from Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, with offices also in New York and London.
Two years ago, Crown Creative moved into the former Hill Street studio occupied by AV Browne, which collapsed in 2023 after nearly a century in business.
“We now offer interior design, we offer strategy, we offer website design. We see ourselves as a full service creative partner.
“If you come to us with an idea, you really only need to speak to one agency.”
The St Regis Cap Cana project for Marriott was Crown Creative’s largest to date.
What is unusual for the Hill Street studio is its global reputation in hospitality.
Crown Creative has just completed work on one of the world’s most anticipated new five star resorts of 2025 in the Dominican Republic for Marriott.
St Regis Cap Cana, where guests enjoy their own butler, is the agency’s largest project to date.
Closer to home, Crown Creative recently completed Birch Cabins for the Lagan family in Killinchy.
“We’re super proud to be from Belfast and have a studio here. But one thing I’ve always been really cognisant about and conscious of is not calling ourselves a Belfast agency, because it can make you feel small.
“We have always had a global outlook. I spend a week in my month in New York. I’m constantly in London.
“The mindset at Crown is our work is global, so we should act and feel like we’re a global agency.”
The Limavady man recently managed to spend a couple of weeks at the St Regis Cap Cana resort with his family.
“You are kind of pinching yourself thinking we designed this, in Belfast.
“When you do a project like St Regis, the floodgates open, you get a lot of enquiry and interest.”
Chipeen in Galway and Neighbourhood café in Belfast.
Those enquiries have included Waldorf Astoria and the Ritz Carlton in Geneva.
All have produced more ‘pinch me’ moments for Ryan and his talented team.
But the Limavady man is keen to point out the diversity of the agency’s hospitality offering.
Sitting in his beautiful sunlit red brick studio, he points to images on the wall of Galway takeaway Chipeen and luxury New York dog hotel Barkhouse.
Crown Creative is also currently working with a large restaurant group in Norway.
He remains convinced that building good relationships has been key to the success.
He prioritises face-to-face contact, spending a week out of every month in New York and lots of time in London.
“A lot of our clients from four years ago are still our clients.”
Alongside his design work, Ryan became a hospitality business owner himself in 2021, launching Neighbourhood café with Oisín McEvoy.
“The relationship with Oisín has been amazing.”
Ryan Crown with his Neighbourhood Café co-founder Oisín McEvoy. PICTURE COLM LENAGHAN
Describing it as “a marriage made in heaven”, he said key to Neighbourhood’s success has been the decision by the partners to stick to their own strengths.
“There’s definitely appetite from both of us to do more.”
What that might look like is still unclear.
“We’ve clearly got something good going with Neighbourhood, so we’re going to keep refining that one unit, and keep making it better.
“I think the ambition for both of us is to keep creating exciting new concepts that make Belfast better.”
In 2023, Ryan submitted a planning application to turn the old Crown Creative offices at 52 Hill Street into a restaurant.
Planning permission for the project just came through at the end of July. But Ryan says things have changed in the intervening three years.
As of now, the project remains on hold.
But he’s incredibly excited by the new wave of hospitality businesses popping up across Belfast and beyond.
“There’s an exciting younger energy I think coming through Belfast.
“I’m super positive and I’m very optimistic about Belfast. We’re a tough city, a resilient city, but the more optimism we have here, the better.”