See inside a wildly popular shipping container home that a couple built and rents on Airbnb for almost $430 a night
Brittany Chang
The Box Hop
- Emily and Seth Britt have built three shipping container homes in Ohio.
- The homes are now almost completely booked on Airbnb through 2022.
Not all shipping containers are destined for a life of logistics and transportation.
Associated Press
Some end up becoming trendy Instagram friendly homes starting at over $400 a night.
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Over the last few years, creative startups and hospitality groups have turned the large corrugated containers into homes, hotel concepts, and Airbnbs.
The Pad hotel and hostel in Silverthorne, Colorado. The Pad
And some companies, like husband and wife duo Seth Britt and Emily Britt's Box Hop, have found fortuitous success in this booming industry.
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In 2017, the Britts decided to build a personal vacation home in Hocking Hills State Park outside of Columbus, Ohio, for their growing family.
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But instead of constructing an ordinary cabin, the couple decided to embark on Seth Britt's years-long dream of building a shipping container home.
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In 2018, with the help of family, friends, and YouTube tutorials, the couple turned three 40-foot-tall shipping containers they purchased from a local provider into a three-bedroom home that they now affectionately refer to as the OG Box.
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Like many entrepreneurial homeowners, the couple decided to list the home on Airbnb for a stream of passive income while they stayed elsewhere.
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And to the surprise of the family, that's when the home "totally took off," Seth Britt told Insider.
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Since mid-2019, the OG Box has hit a nearly 100% occupancy rate, the couple said.
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"We rarely wanted to book it for ourselves because we were so excited about the interest people had and the support we were getting," Emily Britt told Insider.
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And what once began as a plan to build a vacation home suddenly turned into the pair's full time job.
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This public interest pushed the Britts to build two more shipping container homes to list on Airbnb: the one-bedroom Boho and five-bedroom Hygge (pictured below).
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And so far, their business has seen resounding success.
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The OG and Boho are almost completely booked through the end of 2022.
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Even the larger Hygge, which is harder to fill because of its size, is substantially booked through this year.
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Source: Airbnb
Box Hop's success shouldn't come as a surprise: Hotels are out, and vacations in unusual accommodations like the Hygge container home (pictured below) are in.
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"Millennials and Gen Zers don't want to go to a place and stay in a hotel," Seth Britt said. "They want to go to a place where they can experience something more fun and immersive." (Hygge pictured)
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Since the start of COVID-19, vacationers have been flocking to unconventional hospitality arrangements like tiny homes, yurts, or these shipping container homes like the Hygge model below.
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Source: Insider
This desire for the unorthodox might be why the OG build — which features a uniquely stacked design — has attracted more visitors than Box Hop's other models, Emily Britt said.
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Let's take a tour inside the container home starting at $427 a night, which looks more like an Instagram-able boutique hotel than a stack of metal boxes.
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For the couple's first build, the multi-level OG looks as professional and trendy as any home.
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Inside the matte black and wood accented home, there are three bright bedrooms …
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… two contemporary bathrooms …
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… a kitchen and living room with a large dining table …
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… and a reading nook that opens into the upper patio.
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During Ohio's warmer months, guests can use the hot tub on the lower deck.
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But during the cold snowy winter, guests can warm up by the gas fireplace.
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The home's bright neutral-toned interior looks nothing like a traditional wood cabin tucked away in a forest.
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According to Seth Britt, this "unconventional" design, as far as shipping containers go, is what created the initial hype around the home.
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And it's easy to see why.
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The container home's trendy decorative accents like a neon light in one of the upstairs bedrooms …
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… walls of windows with beautiful views of the trees …
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… and charming string of outdoor lights all make the container home a haven for both Instagram influencers and families looking for a city escape.
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This container home is already drawing in plenty of business, but the couple has no plans to slow down their growth.
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The Britts are now working on several additional projects including a container home near Lake Michigan.
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They're focused on building units in markets near plenty of outdoor activities.
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But in the long term, the couple wants to have 5,000 Box Hop homes sprinkled throughout the country.
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On the side, they're also exploring the possibility of franchising Box Hop to help people create container homes like the Boho model pictured below for both vacation homes and short-term rental properties.
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"I think there should be a Box Hop in a short day trip for everybody in the US," Seth Britt said (Hygge pictured below).
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