Giving away the authentic 6-ton duplicate Russet Burbank that, after touring the nation on its Great Big Idaho Potato Truck, is paying important dividends for the Idaho Potato Commission, in step with Frank Muir, president, and CEO of the organization.
Kristie Wolfe, a Century High School dropout who spent years touring with the enduring truck as a member of its “Tater Team,” has transformed the outsized tuber right into a miniature home, available for rent on Airbnb.
Media retailers and TV packages for the world’s duration have publicized Wolfe’s Boise-primarily based Big Idaho Potato Hotel, a good way to welcome its first guests later this month but has already booked more than 100 reservations.
The Potato Commission considered donating the spud to a museum but in the long run opted to offer it to Wolfe, who made it into her fourth innovative, miniature domestic indexed on Airbnb.
Since April 20, IPC has loved nearly $1 million well worth of unfastened advertising and marketing from the sizeaspecific condo domestic’s sizeable media insurancekeeping with an estimate using a business enterprise that works intently with IPC.
Muir started the potato motel in 27 international locations, including Russia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, India, and Brazil.
Frank Muir, president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission:
“This is just like the United Nations of potatoes.”
“That everyone could be interested in a 6-ton Idaho potato motel is pretty cool.”
In the U.S., the spud resort tale has been picked up via The Today Show, National Public Radio, USA Today, and Live with Kelly and Ryan. People Magazine included the inn amongst subjects such as Game of Thrones and The Avengers in its May 13 column ‘Five Things that People are Talking About.’
Kristie Wolfe, who now lives in Boise and continues to work at the landscaping at the site:
“There are such a lot of potato enthusiasts.”
“We were given one (reservation) the other day from a gal turning 26, and she or he becomes having a potato-themed celebration, and when she saw this.”
IPC unveiled the truck in 2012, supposed to focus on a year-lengthy marketing campaign to celebrate the business enterprise’s seventy-fifth anniversary. But the truck proved to be so famous, IPC has organized annual U.S. Treks every 12 months for then.
Muir explained the hollow tuber became sculpted from the equal material used to build indoor hiking partitions. Repairing cracks within the facade has become increasingly hard over time, so the commission constructed a brand new fiberglass tuber to mount out at the truck before its modern U.S. Tour.
Frank Muir:
“Early on, Kristie approached me with the concept of turning the potato right into a tiny motel.”
“She’s built several tiny inns, lots of that have been featured in various magazines and newspapers, and she or he changed into on a TV show constructing tiny houses for some time. I had a hundred percentage self-assurance she may want to do that and do it properly.”
IPC released the 2019 Great Big Idaho Potato Truck excursion in April from the potato motel website, alongside Earth Day. The commission additionally donated a metallic signal to submit at the motel, imparting records of the potato and the truck, in addition to heritage on IPC.
Wolfe explained she designed the indoors to be fashionable, attractive to couples. The small library in the potato functions agricultural-themed books; instead of a TV, there’s a report player, with vinyl presenting the queens of u. S. A. Tune. At its maximum point, the ceiling is 10.5 ft tall.
The toilet is housed in a nearby grain silo and includes a heated floor, a hearth, a -character bath, and a separate shower. The landscaping is theme-appropriate — potato plants surrounding the silo and decorative sweet potato vines planted across the giant spud that is surrounded with the aid of earthen berms. Furthering the farm topic, she constructed a 1-acre enclosure that is home to a tame Jersey cow named Dolly.
A night’s stay expenses $two hundred, and she’s been reserving reservations from human beings from at some stage in the usa, in addition to a few guests from foreign countries. Visitors have also been preventing through mechanically seeing the little potato house or checking it extra intently after recognizing it to determine if it’s real.
In addition to the spud, Wolfe rents stay in a Hobbit House in Washington State, a treehouse in Hawaii, and a transformed fireplace lookout in Northern Idaho.
Kristie Wolfe:
“I suppose (the Big Idaho Potato Hotel) will honestly be the maximum famous (Airbnb condo) in Idaho.”
“I don’t assume we’ll have any vacancies.”
The potato inn is positioned in a rural setting accessed with the aid of turning south at the Boise Orchard go out. It’s just past the railroad tracks. As Muir points out, you can’t leave out a massive potato.
Wolfe’s father, Frank Wolfe, is a retired Century English instructor. Both her little brother and little sister are past Century pupil body presidents.