The Historic Haines Shoe House can now be rented as an Airbnb. The home is located at 197 Shoe House Road in Hellam Township. It was once a honeymoon suite, ice cream parlor, and tourist attraction. Originally, the home was built in 1948 as a way to promote a shoe business by Mahlon Haines. Naomi Brown purchased the property in 2021 and turned it into a short-term rental.

“I grew up driving past it many, many times as a lot of people did, who lived throughout this region. And it was just, you know, a really interesting kind of quirky property. And when the opportunity came about for us to purchase it, I just couldn't say no.”

The rental has three bedrooms, one bath, and a living room with a kitchen. Brown made sure to preserve as much history as possible during the renovation period.

“Well, it was really our desire to try and preserve as much of that history as possible. So, when we when we changed the use, we really tried not to change anything fundamental if we if we didn't need to. So, it still has the original kitchen cabinets from 1950s. It has a very custom arched bench in the dining room that was originally for that particular layout. It has a lot of original flooring, all the doors, a lot of features or just that's originally what was there, and we wanted to preserve that. One very unique aspect of the shoe is that it actually has stained glass windows that have shoes as part of the glass inset, and the front door has a stained-glass window with the face of Mellon Hanes, who's the gentleman who built the shoe house. So, a lot of very unique windows, which we did restore several of those to make sure they're here for the long term.”