I restored a 1900s train car with my dad and turned it into an Airbnb. Now it’s paid for itself.
Isaac French (left) helped his father restore a 1900s traincar (right) in Idaho.
One day my dad got a call from one of our neighbors. We were good friends with him, and he needed help shoveling the roof of his barn. This was December of 2019.
So my dad went over there, and as soon as he was done shoveling, he looked under and there’s this old train car.
It was almost unrecognizable as a train car. There were about 20 cats living in it, and it was almost unbearable to go near. The windows were boarded over, just creepy and rotted out. I probably would’ve just thought, “Oh, this thing needs to be burned.”
When French’s father found the train car, it was decrepit and reeked of cats.
But being the train enthusiast and the visionary that my dad is, he offered to buy it.
“Look, I’ll take this off your hands because it’s not doing you any good and I love trains,” he said. “We’ll figure something out,”
My dad bought it for $3,000.
He found some of the original markings in the paint, which were almost all gone. Local train buffs did some digging in the archives, and sure enough, they found the picture of this exact car the day it was built in 1906.
It’s a super difficult process to move a 61-foot train car that is in really rough shape. It’s like January, early February of 2020 — it’s so muddy and snowy.
It cost us $10,000, and we had to use semis and bulldozers to get it up the final hill. But at a certain point, we just couldn’t go any further, so that became the resting place where it sits today.
French said the car looked almost unrecognizable as a train car when he first saw it.
It’s just such an ideal spot because it’s on the top of this little hill looking out at this incredible little panorama of pristine Idaho countryside. You’re just looking straight out at these rolling hills and canyons and trees. And it would’ve been very similar to the view that you would’ve seen from the railroad track, which is only a few miles away.
Then COVID-19 started — but turning this car into an Airbnb became a perfect outdoors project.
The first order of operations was to build a new enclosure. It wasn’t built to be out in the middle of a field in the elements. Plus, we wanted it to have a little porch. So my older brother John built this really cool timber frame structure around it, which we designed, that resembles the roof line of an original train depot.
Once they relocated the train car, Isaac’s family went to work building an enclosure around it.
The restoration really was just a process of carefully sanding, stripping down inside and out all of the surface area — the floors, siding, interior paneling — and obviously trying to save everything we could. I would say 95% of the car is original.
Once we got past that first quarter inch of grime, it was good wood inside. We just sanded everything down super carefully and then refinished it. The flooring to paneling, all of that is original. And then, we found original paint colors for the lime green color of the ceiling.
This is a combination car — it was used as a passenger car, a US mail car, and a cargo car.
French’s family added a bathroom into the train car.
We used the mail compartment as a bedroom, the cargo compartment for the bathroom and entryway, and the passenger compartment as the lounge living area and kitchenette.
My mom is super talented with interior design. She’s very into this gilded age, antique style. And so she found a lot of the pieces, like old chests, drawers, chairs and such from antique shops and estate sales.
Then we worked with a friend of ours to do a custom copper light fixture to match pictures of the original car.
We spent $151,000 all-in, including the $3,000 for the car, and it took us about six months to finish.
One of the train compartments was converted into a lounge and living area.
Airbnb success
Then this thing blew up when we launched on Airbnb.
We booked up 90% occupancy the first year, and this quickly became one of the most unique and profitable stays. It paid for itself in 18 months.
The tricky thing is this is in the middle of nowhere, it’s really off the beaten path. People have to intentionally carve out time, book a trip, and travel a long ways to come experience it.
That’s part of the reason we price it at around $325 a night. That seems like a lot, but based on the occupancy and the demand, I think it’s pretty reasonable. We could technically raise the prices, but we don’t plan to.
The restored train car rests underneath a depot-style overhang with a large porch.
We want as many people as possible to come and experience it because there are so many people who are passionate about these restoration projects and specifically about trains.
So much of our history as a nation has to do with trains, yet their impact is under-appreciated. And as technology and transportation has evolved, trains have by and large been left in the dustbin of history.
My dad had this incredible belief and conviction that this car could be redeemed. And because of that, we all rallied behind it. And sure enough, it happened.
But to see it come from such a decrepit and seemingly unredeemable condition and become this fresh, full of life, incredibly vibrant experience … It’s just, in every sense, invigorating. Going to that car, walking through it, you can’t help but feel energy in your veins and a sense of what it would’ve felt like back in the day to be on this same car.
This thing was dead, and now it has new life.
