The Raven in Red River Gorge: How Shea built a thriving short term rental business using DEN's A-Frame plans

How Shea built a booked-out short term rental business using DEN's A-Frame Retreat Plans

 

Hi everybody! This week, I'm thrilled to bring you a conversation between myself and a lovely fella named Shea. Shea built DEN's A-Frame Retreat plans in Red River Gorge, Kentucky, and has subsequently built a successful short term rental business out of his cabin, which he adoringly named "The Raven". Join Shea and me as we discuss Shea's journey from purchasing a Building Package to fully realizing DEN's house plans, and finally to his success in building out a short term rental portfolio. 

I'll be posting these conversations weekly, and I look forward to continuing to share your stories!  

Find Shea's Airbnb here, and The Raven's Instagram here.

1. Building in Red River Gorge & The 52 Hike Challenge

Shea Dean: My name is Shea Dean. I built in what we call Red River Gorge, Kentucky. It's Eastern Kentucky, a mountainous region. And we chose that area because It's pretty close to our hearts.

We hiked a bunch down there, spent basically a year down there, just hiking different trails every week. And, uh, the area is just amazing. It's not been commercialized too much and it's just a fun place to just get away and hang out, that's less than an hour drive from our house.

Mike: Nice. And you just mentioned to me that, that you and your partner, uh, were doing this like, 52 hike challenge - like one new hike a week - is that, is that right?

Shea Dean: Yeah. Yeah, so I can, I think it was 2019. We'd seen it on Instagram. It was like you said, 52 hike challenge, like, 'Oh, that'd be cool'. Like, get us out. We have dogs, like they love walking around.

And, uh, 80 percent of our hikes were probably done in Red River Gorge. So we got to know the area really well, um, I've explored it for different business stuff. Uh, I'm a real estate agent as well. So I've helped clients kind of buy some rental properties down there and, uh, we just fell in love with it. So we knew right away, like if we were going to ever have an Airbnb that that's where we wanted to start it at.

Mike: Awesome. And then, uh, have to ask for the, for the podcast. Um, how, how did you guys do on the 52? Did you get to like 43 or like, or did you get even, even closer?

Shea Dean: We actually finished it. We did.

Mike: No way!

Shea Dean: Yeah. I can send you the breakdown from my old post where we had, now some weeks we had to do like two or three to catch ourselves back up, but, uh, we, we ended up knocking it out like the last day of that year.

Mike: Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That's, that's amazing. Yeah.

Shea Dean: I think we had like, uh, four or five other States that were included in there too. So we got to see some other places, but most of it was down in the gorge.

Mike: Oh, fantastic. Yeah. As someone who, who loves the outdoors, I mean, I've done like some pretty long hikes like last year, my partner and I, , she and I climbed, uh, the grand Canyon together. We did like, we did like 30 miles, like down, down to the river, you know, down to the bottom of the Canyon, back up, like we had this back country permit. It was, it was sick. Um, but, uh, cool. I mean, that sounds incredible.

2. Choosing to Build a DEN A-Frame Retreat

Mike: So, and then which, which DEN design did you guys build?

Shea Dean: We went with the A-Frame Retreat.

Mike: And why'd you, why, why that one?

Shea Dean: I like the size.

Um, we didn't want, I didn't want anything like three bedrooms plus for my first one, just cause I didn't want that many people there. Um, so I could kind of break the ice with a little smaller unit. And then I've stayed in some like legit tiny homes, eight foot wide, whatever, and so I was real out on that. So I settled on that like 800 square foot-ish number that the retreat is. And it's, it's legit been the perfect size.

Like I, like the guests there, I usually only have two to four people there. There's not much wear and tear. So it's been, I'm really... glad that I went with that option.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome.

3. Why Build New Instead of Buying & Renovating?

Mike: And, and tell us a little bit about your thought process around building something, uh, from the ground up versus maybe like buying something, you know, an existing asset and renovating it. Why'd you guys choose to build new construction?

Shea Dean: So, like I said, I, I do real estate as well. I've been in several properties down there that weren't built too well. You could go like the A-Frames have the big window walls. You could sit there and shake the whole wall, stuff like that.

So you can't really trust everybody's construction. Um, and so I was like, if it's going to be my first one, I don't want to have to inherit somebody else's problems, or have to go in with a crazy extensive remodel that's just as intense as building from the ground up. So I found a couple lots, that I, I liked, and picked those and that's when we got started with it.

Mike: Nice. Nice. And, you know, I guess like coming from a real estate background, you felt pretty confident in your ability to like assess which piece of land you were going to buy and build.

4. Selecting the Right Land for an Airbnb

Mike: For other folks listening in, like, you know, what, what was like your, your, the most important criteria that, that you were going with in terms of selecting land?

Shea Dean: So I think this is like, in my opinion, one of the number one things that should be in your list that you make sure you get right and put a lot of thought into, because even though some places may have like a really pretty view, like there's a lot of places that look similar to the gorge, you got Hawking Hills in Ohio, you got like Gatlinburg, Sevierville in Tennessee, stuff like that. Um, there's better views that I could have bought or better features, but they come at the cost of like, going up crazy steep hills or getting washed out in heavy rains or heavy snows not being able to access them so, I'll keep -this will be a theme probably throughout -but for my first one I wanted that stuff to be as easy as possible.

So I found something that you don't need four wheel drive to get to, it's in a really nice area. It's within 10 minutes of the big state park that draws everybody there. It's close to Muir Valley, if you've been down there climbing. So it's right there. Uh, we're within 10 minutes to everything: Miguel's pizza, all the hot buzzwords that you'll hear about the gorge we're within 10 minutes of it.

Mike: Oh, I've, I've, I've eaten at Miguel's pizza and I've climbed up Muir Valley. So, yeah, I mean, this is like... You know, what an exciting interview to do for me today, because like, I love rock climbing and I think a lot of savvy investors like will pick some sort of attraction, you know, to, to put their, their DEN next to, right. And like, it's either skiing or snowboarding, you know, like potential wellness , you know, but, uh, I think you guys might be like the first, like rock climbing destination.

Shea Dean: That's cool. Maybe I should market it more to that. Cause I don't even have that in my description, I don't think on Airbnb.

Mike: Honestly, you should! There are so many people, like I'm part of the rock climbing community here in Philadelphia and like, and you know, everyone's, everyone's either trying to figure out like, you know, when to go to Red River Gorge or New River Gorge, like it's either 'red', 'new' 'red', 'new', like, yeah, yeah. But there's so much -

Shea Dean: If you come down you're gonna have to teach me how to climb. I've only ever done it once. We, uh, we had some friends that were also photographers. So we shot their elopement in Colorado and after they wanted to go rock climbing together. So they, uh, helped us do like a small little climb. We probably went like 50 feet up in the air, but it was fun.

Mike: Oh, amazing. I would, I would happily, uh, do that for you. Um, that would, that would be super fun. So other people's problems, I totally get that. Right. Um, and just like avoiding all of that. Um-

Shea Dean: Like we just had, we've had the most snow that I can remember here, like consecutively, and I had one guest that wasn't able to make it down to the cabin, ended up having to like do something else, uh, with their stay. So like, it's really, I think kind of paid off a little bit that I chose the, the way that I did.

Mike: Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

5. Managing & Marketing The Raven

Mike: So this is also your first investment property?

Shea Dean: Yes. First investment, first short term. Uh, we only go through Airbnb on ours.

Mike: Oh, awesome. Awesome. Um, can you tell us a little bit about that? How's that going for you?

Shea Dean: It's been great. We, uh, I, I chose Airbnb as my exclusive one, so that way I didn't muddy up the waters with too many calendars and something getting double booked, whatever. And we stay - I don't have the exact number, I could probably get it for you - but I'd say we stay... 73 to 75 percent booked, um...

Mike: Amazing! With weekday bookings? Yeah. Weekday bookings, everything.

Shea Dean: Yeah.

Mike: Amazing! Amazing.

Shea Dean: So like right now - January, February - is our slow season. So we'll have all the weekends booked. Weekdays, kind of, stay open, but we'll be, I mean, 95 percent booked in the, in... for six months out of the year.

Mike: Oh wow. And, and like, what do you think that's a credit to, like, the photos, the design, the, the location, a combination of that?

Shea Dean: I don't really know how much it is the location, cause I, like... I could have specific people say they're, they're going to that spot, like they know some of the local attractions, but a lot of it, man, I think is the design. So like your all's layout, your design, that's what we went off of. And then the unique thing about ours is it's all black inside. So, um, I don't really know of any more that are as all black as ours down there. There may be a few, but I think it just kind of draws people in. It's unique. And, uh, yeah. Everybody's loved it has been there.

Mike: Awesome, and you guys have the... I know that this particular design has a skylight above one of the downstairs, uh, beds as well as the skylight in the shower. And did you guys go with that in your final build?

Shea Dean: We did. The only thing that I think we changed out of the whole floor plan was we took the closet out of the master so we could have a laundry in the hallway.

Mike: Oh, awesome. Awesome.

Shea Dean: So we don't have any closets, but the laundry's in the hallway.

Mike: Uh, I have not, you know, as someone who has, who has approved the design, it's crazy, I have not showered in that design and I take it, you probably have showered, yeah?

Shea Dean: Dude, our shower's sick. Um, I'll send you some good pictures of it, but we did all matte black tiles throughout it. It's pretty.

Mike: That's awesome. And how do you like the skylight in the shower?

Shea Dean: It's, it's really cool. It's like you, you could stay in there all day.

Mike: Amazing.

Shea Dean: That was the most, that was the one thing we were most excited to use once the cabin was done. It's like, and everybody that sees it, they just want to go take the shower.

Mike: That's amazing. That's amazing.

6. The Experience of Using DEN Plans to Build

Mike: Um, and like, tell us a little bit about like the process to build it, right, so like how, how did like having a set of den plans in hand help you find the right contractor and like establish, you know, the right relationship with them?

Shea Dean: So I talked to a ton of your potential customers. Anytime you all repost it, so on. I probably talk to five to 10 people every time. So, and they all, I think want more info from me, like about like different, like bad experiences, good experiences, whatever... I tell them it was just super easy.

So when I picked the plans, I bought, I don't know what you all call them now, but I bought the basic plan first. I bought the one for the A-Frame Retreat and the Outpost, because I wasn't sure if I was going to build two at one time, try to, uh, add more to that lot or whatever, but I ended up just going with the Retreat, bought the complete set. And from there, my only correspondence with anybody about plans was the changed up, uh, laundry room. And when I first bought them from you all, I had the, a different foundation set on there and you all gave me the peers.

Mike: Oh, cool.

Shea Dean: Yeah.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome.

Shea Dean: Builder wanted.

Mike: Nice.

Shea Dean: Other than that, that was it. I asked the builder when he was done building. I said, 'Hey, how was it? Because I know I'm going to get asked a bunch'. And, uh, he said, 'No, everything was fine'. He was able to use the whole way and I didn't have to bring anybody else in to, uh, handle any of it, to be honest with you.

Mike: Awesome. And then did you go with a fixed price, uh, construction contract or did you do a cost plus construction contract?

Shea Dean: It was... cost plus, I believe.

Mike: Cost plus. Okay. Yeah.

Shea Dean: Yeah. I can give you the full, I know like how much it costs. Um, yeah. But yeah, that's how it was.

Mike: Yeah. Gotcha, cool. Well first of all, it's amazing that you hired one builder and crossed the finish line with the same builder, so that's like-

Shea Dean: Yeah, that's even down where I'm at, that's kind of rare. Like a lot of people have issues. You gotta... Anywhere in the country, honestly, you need to vet the builder and just make sure they can get you, like you said, to the finish line. You don't want to have to bring somebody else into a project after somebody else has left.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And, and was there anything about that builders communication or collaboration style that you particularly liked?

Shea Dean: It was, um, he was, he's not, he's close to my age and I actually knew him from an old real estate office that we had used to work at. So like I, I knew his style, knew how he was and uh, he got my vision pretty well with everything as well. So I, a lot of where I'm at is still like - I call them Gatlinburg cabins - just like wood, like black bears everywhere. Like it's that kind of design. Like, uh, so I needed somebody that like knew my vision of like, 'Hey, I don't want that. And I want it to just be, I want it to follow these plans.' Your all's renderings are always beautiful. I'm like, I want this vibe with what I'm about to build. So yeah, it worked out.

Mike: Did you guys like do like weekly meetings? Like, were you texting a bunch? Like, you know,

Shea Dean: Probably a lot more texting. Uh, he had like a project manager for a while who I would follow up with. Um, and we got like, for the most part, we were pretty hands off. Like I didn't, uh, sub anybody out. They handled it from start to finish.

So like, I handled a few things like buying some fixtures and certain, um, A door and stuff like that, that I dropped off and said, 'Hey, I just want this specific one installed. There's no need for y'all to order it' like that kind of thing. But for the most part, yeah, it was texting, um, some phone calls, updates. We were down there probably every couple of weeks to three weeks just to check on it and see it, cause we were excited.

Mike: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. I ask all that because I'm wondering how much of the, how much heavy lifting do the plans themselves do like, and the materials lists. Um, but yeah, that's good to, good to hear.

Shea Dean: That's one thing, like I will say, like, I don't, you all had the material list as far as like the, the structure, all of that, I believe that I would have to check with you on some of it, but all of that, I believe that was used exactly according to plans. I didn't do like the interior material list, like stuff like that for like those products, but yeah.

7. Favorite Features: Window Walls & Skylit Shower

Mike: Cool. Um, and then you guys mentioned that you really love the shower. Uh, that's like a, a pretty key feature, but yeah. Tell us a little bit about the design. Like what are your favorite parts of the house itself? Where do you like to hang out?

Shea Dean: I'm big on the, the window wall in the back, the big sliding door, all the windows I love sitting there throughout the day and watching the shadows change as the sun just goes around and it puts a cool vibe throughout the whole place. Like our theme was - can you cuss on here? Can I?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.

Shea Dean: Our, our tagline when we were building it was like, 'we just want it to be cozy as fuck.' Like, that's it. Like, I want to sit there and just look around and be like, 'damn, this is like cozy as fuck'. Like that was it. Yeah. And I think we achieved that. So, uh, but the window wall and then, um, I love the hot tub. So we're out on the deck all the time in the hot tub and then looking back up at the, at the A-Frame.

Mike: That sounds, uh, amazing. Amazing. Um, dude, that is so, that is so cool. Let's see, like, so. I mean, the occupancy sounds great. Like, yeah.

8. Real Estate Investing & Future Plans

Mike: So maybe tell us a little bit about like what, you know, as a, as a real estate investor, like, you know, who also is like pretty savvy on, like, all of these markets, like Hawking Hills, you know, uh, and others in the United States, like what, what do you find interesting in real estate investing these days? And like, what markets do you find interesting?

Shea Dean: Man, it's just really cool. It's... you hear just about any industry anymore. Everybody's excuses, everything's saturated. And like, I always see that as like, I mean, yeah, it's saturated, but then when you have a lot of people in a specific industry, the top like 10 percent are doing some really cool things. And like, there's a lot of stuff to learn from.

So like you look at all the different designs you all do, like in your industry and every one of them just kills it. And then, so you go through like the investing part, like. There's some really cool stuff out there. You can go stay at, you can give you ideas for yourself to build like in different markets.

Um, so I think like, one of the best, uh, markets in the country right now is where I'm at, is Red River Gorge. Um, you can probably find some studies that say, I don't like have any specific one to link, but, um, that's one of the hottest ones. And then like we just mentioned, like Hawking Hills is a big one like that. I'm less versed in like cities. So like, I don't want to do anything in cities because I don't like how all the permits, uh, are being changed and I can't trust any of that. So I love these rural mountainous areas that, um, you can build cool things and... I just wanted... anything that I invested in just to be somewhere where people wanted to come hang out. Like I didn't want them to expect much other than, 'Hey, we're just going to chill and this is a good place to do it'.

Mike: Right. Right. So I, a friend of mine once told me that his approach to real estate investing... um, was that he only buys places that he could walk to... or drive to. Right? Um, so how, how far are you guys away, like driving distance from this particular property?

Shea Dean: Like if I left my house right now, I could be there in 55 minutes.

Mike: Nice! Okay.

Shea Dean: Like I'm in Lexington, the second biggest city in Kentucky and I can be there within 55 minutes... so. If you look up pictures of it, it looks like a completely different area where I'm at.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

Shea Dean: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's especially big for like when you're getting started, um, in... investing, because then you can keep a close eye on it. Like I manage the property myself. I don't have a property manager do it.

9. Managing the Airbnb & Other Businesses

Mike: Gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, that's what I was about to ask. Do you find that, that beneficial, like at least in there, this like first project, early days of your portfolio, like, do you, do you like to be like that hands on?

Shea Dean: Yeah, I love it. It's one of my, I have, it's, this is basically like my third business that I have. So, um, I love the managing part of it. Um, I go down there and check on it probably at least once a week. I have an amazing cleaner who makes my life super easy. Um, but yeah, it's been, it's been fun for me. I'll probably keep managing them as I get more, uh, for as long as I can until I needed to hire somebody else out.

Mike: Amazing. So you're, you're, you're a real estate, uh, broker, right?

Shea Dean: Mm hmm.

Mike: Uh, you've got this, uh, you know, emerging short term rental portfolio, right? What is, you're like a, what, graffiti artist is the third thing. What is it?

Shea Dean: No, that'd be cool. I can't draw very well. Uh, no, we do, I'm a photographer and videographer. We do weddings, um, stuff for businesses, stuff like that. We do a lot of travel elopements, so we travel the country quite a bit.

Mike: Oh, amazing. Amazing. That's so cool. Um, uh, yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to think if there's anything else that I want to ask here. Um.

Shea Dean: I will say that I think has attributed to some of the success, like me being in the photo video side... I've been able to make some of the content that people have liked to see and all my listing photos, I did, and we get a lot of people who say they were attracted to the listing because of the photos.

Mike: Oh, that's cool. That's really cool.

Shea Dean: And I picked myself apart. Like I'll, like I, I'm over them, but like, I can't change them because people still love them. So like it works for us. But I think if you aren't versed in photo and video, maybe hire somebody that's really good at it.

Mike: Yeah, yeah. Oh man, I really appreciate the fact that like you're this like one man band that like handles, so much of this listing and like the promotion of this listing.

Shea Dean: I have my hand in every bit of it. The only thing I don't do is clean it and we tried to clean it for a while and that got old quick.

11. Final Thoughts & Advice for Future Guests

Mike: Um, well cool. Uh, so as we, as we like, you know, uh, talk about this thing on Instagram and like on our website, like what are the, what are the key points that you want us to convey about, you know, the project or the property itself? Like what, you know, what do you want to, what do you want to share with your future guests?

Shea Dean: Guests?

Mike: Yeah!

Shea Dean: I just want to know that I'm trying every way possible to just make their stay as easy as possible. Like I said, I just want you to come chill, hang out. You're not like, It's not like you're there. You need a car, you need to go be close to the city or whatever. There's not much around there. So I wanted my place to be where they like to hang out. It rains a lot, so you can chill inside with the windows. It's perfect. Um, and then... yeah, just get to know the area. It's a super cool spot. Eastern Kentucky is like pretty rural. There's not much out there. So like you could drive by once and think there's nothing to do. And then, as you know from rock climbing, there's a whole world out there if you just get outside and start walking around. So, yeah.

Mike: Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, cool. On behalf of the whole team at DEN, thanks for spending some time with us today Shae. The project looks incredible. I'm jealous that you've showered in the shower with the skylight and I haven't. One of these days...

Shea Dean: I'll save a spot for ya.

 

Mike: Hell yeah!