Pennsylvania’s Hottest Rentals Include Giant 3-Chamber Shoe

If sleeping in a 1,400 square foot work boot is on your 2023 vision board, head west into York County.

The Haines Shoe House, built in 1949 as a marketing tool for a local shoe store, has been renovated and is available to rent. The home features three bedrooms, 2½ baths and a backyard hot tub. The shoe’s new owners, Naomi and Waylon Brown, bought the property this summer for $355,000 and set about fixing it. It opened for hire on VRBO.com in November.

“We were the first guests to stay and test it out,” Naomi Brown told The Inquirer on Friday. “I celebrated my 40th birthday there with my sisters.

The average cost for the Haines Shoe House, according to VRBO, is $302 per night, but Brown said the base weekday rate is $199 per night. She said the shoe was pretty much booked until April.

“As far as I know, there aren’t too many shoe houses in the country,” she said. “There may be one in California.”

The Shoe House was built by Mahlon “the Shoe Wizard” Haines on Shoe House Lane, visible from Route 30, east of York. Haines lived there briefly, then let people affiliated with his stores or newlyweds stay there. The shoe house was opened to tenants, then used as a private residence, and for several decades operated as an ice cream parlor.

Brown said the glacier was not doing well and with the popularity of short-term rentals, especially the quirky ones, converting into a home seemed like a no-brainer. The Browns made a modern decoration in the shoe while retaining the history and eccentricities that Haines was known for.

“We’ve had so many people come here and say, ‘My grandparents stayed here,’ and we wanted to keep the history intact,” she said.

Brown said the shoe house will soon receive a state historical marker.