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Tour an Out-of-the-Shoebox Stunt Turned Boot-Shaped Vacation Rental With ‘Zillow Gone Wild’
Follow in host Jack McBrayer’s footsteps as he tours Pennsylvania’s legendary Haines Shoe House, then dip a toe in (or jump in with both feet on) decor that channels its vibe. Get your kicks right here.
There once was a kind woman who purchased a shoe. She told so many dad jokes, Jack didn't know what to do.
Many a Jack McBrayer-helmed exploration of real estate’s most fantastic frontiers on Zillow Gone Wild concludes with a closer-to-home examination of self. Could you make the ultimate commitment to sustainability and live in an eco-friendly desert home constructed, proudly, of garbage? Could you be tough but fair as the de facto mayor of an entire Wild-West-themed town in the Colorado mountains?
These kinds of rhetorical questions can be answered quite literally at the Haines Shoe House, a whimsical roadside attraction built in 1948 in Hellam Township, Pennsylvania, to remind passing motorists who spied it while driving along US Route 30 that it’s never a bad time to shop for new footwear. The five-story dwelling was the brainchild of “Shoe Wizard” Mahlon Haines, an enterprising businessman who handed his architect a work boot and said, “Build me a house like this.” (Let’s all observe a moment of silence for that architect, who might well have assumed he’d been hired to build a standard shoe store.)
First Steps
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The Shoe House was one of many, many self-promotional projects Mahlon Haines undertook in the course of his colorful life; he's said to have stood up at baseball games and offered $20 to anyone who recognized him, and parents who named their boys after him received free shoes.
Perched on a 0.91-acre parcel of land and bordered with a boot-bedecked fence, the Shoe House was constructed for $26,000; adjusted for inflation, that would be about $347,000 today. Waylon and Naomi Brown purchased the home in 2022 for $335,000, then spent about four months and $75,000 giving it much-needed TLC. “I had this connection to the Shoe House from my childhood [and] we would drive by it so many times when I was growing up,” Naomi told Jack. “So when I saw the listing, I just said to my husband, ‘How could we pass by this opportunity?’ He, of course, loved the idea as well.”
Hitting Its Stride
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The wood-framed structure found its signature shape thanks to wire mesh covered with stucco. The toe of the boot was its honeymoon suite, made available as a gratis getaway destination for newlyweds and older couples who'd never gotten a chance to travel after their nuptials.
Naomi and Waylon didn’t want to turn the shoe into their full-time residence, mind you. They imagined their quirky buy as a rental shoe — not like the kind you get at bowling alleys, more like the kind you might reserve as part of a once-in-a-lifetime road trip — and made it available for short-term guests of all kinds. With three bedrooms, two baths, a shoe-shaped doghouse and a (non-shoe-shaped) hot tub, this destination is a seriously sizzling commodity. (Turns out locals like to book the Shoe House, too.)
Put Yourself in Their Shoe
So you don’t have to burn forever with the question of whether or not you’d enjoy cozying up in this place’s footbed, is what we’re saying. You can keep an eye on availability and call it home for a bit! In addition to the amenities we’ve already described and a series of truly memorable, original stained-glass windows paying tribute to both footwear as a general proposition and “Shoe Wizard” Mahlon Haines in particular, here are some of the clever quirks and thematic flourishes that make the Shoe House as entertaining to explore as it is to glimpse from your car.
Filet of Sole
Turns out honeymooners don’t spend so much time in the kitchen. Who knew?
The retro-chic kitchen’s prep and cooking space features that bespoke stained glass we mentioned earlier, and it sure looks like Naomi and her husband committed to making everything look like it did in the '40s as they renovated. Or did they? “As you can see, a lot of this looks like it’s from that day,” she told Jack. “And that’s because it is!”
Naomi and Waylon refreshed the snug eat-in kitchen with new wallpaper that suited its midcentury character.
“This was originally built to accommodate the heel of the shoe,” Naomi continued, “but still functions as a kitchen and dining space.”
“This is so creative!” Jack marveled. “I [feel] so snug in the heel! The words that I’m saying … don’t make sense.”
Shoe-Inspired Kitchen Decor
Heel Over Time
The Shoe House’s bonus build and fire escape are hidden when you approach from the curbside instep.
Here’s a look at the kitchen from the exterior, where you can see the fire escape that provides roof access (and was added to the original structure after zoning laws were updated). The Shoe House is a landmark, which means that purchasing it entails a few extra agreements. “There [were] deed restrictions that said we had to maintain it in the shape of a shoe, but we of course wanted to do that,” Naomi explained.
Ankle Abode
The Shoe House also boasts a replica of the boot Mahlon Haines gave his architect for structural inspiration.
Complete with a groovy mural depicting the Mother Goose character who lived in a shoe, the Ankle Abode is one of the home’s three bedrooms (the other two are the Shoelace Space and Instep Suite). This space is the only one with a wall-spanning tribute to footwear, but thanks to artwork, accessories and tchotchkes, guests are never far from shoes.
Design Your Own Shoe House
Shoes Your Own Adventure
In 1949, Mahlon Haines paid $26,000 to build the Shoe House; according to sneakerheads, a green pair of Air Jordans designed by Macklemore once sold for $25,000.
The living room, in turn, extends the kitchen’s midcentury character (with updated furniture inspired by previous iterations); framed blueprints and vintage advertisements, in turn, flank another of the Shoe House’s inimitable windows. Though the Shoe Wizard’s commercial empire is no more, his one-of-a-kind buzz-building scheme is going strong 75 years later — and that’s pretty magical in its own right.
