MC Fireside Chats – May 8th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searl, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks, empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.[00:01:00] 

Mike Harrison: Great welcome to MC Fireside Chats. I am not Brian Searl, neither as handsome or as old as he. My name is Mike Harrison and I am the Chief Operating Officer of CRR Hospitality and I am happy to be a guest host this episode for Modern Campground Fireside Chats while Brian is enjoying Hawaii and I think his entire team will be in agreement with me.

I’m so impressed how quiet he has been on email and text. He must really be enjoying the islands. So first, I just want to make sure before I forget that we acknowledge this week’s sponsor which is Horizon Outdoor Hospitality and as you can see, they’re elevating assets in the outdoor hospitality industry, and they are a third party management company, so thank you, Horizon, for sponsoring this week’s episode.

We appreciate that. And I’d like to welcome this week’s guest. So if you wouldn’t mind, each of you just take a minute to Go around, tell us who you are and what you do and where [00:02:00] you are. So we’ll go in my order. I don’t know if your camera says the same thing, but I got Zach who’s up first.

Zachary Stoltenberg: I’m Zach Stoltenberg. I’m an architect that specializes in outdoor hospitality. I’m the director of The Outdoor Hospitality Studio for Clockwork Architecture in Kansas City. We work with independent owners, developers anybody in the space that’s looking to build incredible glamp sites RV resorts and boutique hotels.

Mike Harrison: Don’t sell yourself short. They’re also a designer. I think they’re one of the best in the industry and they’re like a one stop shop is what I call them. Basically, if you have a piece of land and you needed to get from piece of land to opening, you could call Clockwork. If you have a piece of land, you have it engineered and, designed and you need them to design it, they could do that.

They could do any and all of those. They’re one of the top in the industry. So welcome, Zach. 

Zachary Stoltenberg: Peter. Thank you for the kind words. 

Peter Rodriguez: Yeah. Peter Rodriguez, EcoSolutions. I’m the [00:03:00] president. We are a modular builder in North Alabama Decatur, Huntsville area. While we also we convert shipping containers into different builds whether that’s.

Glamping houses, park model RVs, bath houses, you envision it, right? We can do it. We also have a glamping site that we operate out of North Alabama, right outside of Athens, Alabama, called the Eco Outpost, and it is at an RV park that we’ve partnered with, called Poplar Point Resort. Yeah, 

Mike Harrison: very cool.

I’m looking at your your site right now, so pretty cool. Pretty neat stuff, thank you. Val and Keri? 

Val Pifer: Hi, yeah, I’m Val, this is Keri, and we are with Progress Park Airstream Resort Event Center in Louisville, Kentucky. And we are a glamping venue, we have 7 airstreams, 8 airstreams 2 houses and a bunkhouse, so we do a mix of [00:04:00] glamping and special events.

Mike Harrison: We’re going to come back to you in a moment but welcome to the show, and last but not least, the trunk man himself Matt. 

Matthew Bragstad: And I’m loving this because it’s like Kentucky, Alabama. I’m feeling right at home here in Tennessee. So this works. So it’s all SEC country. Yeah. My name is Matt Braixead.

I’m actually the CMO and chief evangelist for a 4 billion software company out of Chicago. But my biggest patent, which is why the bags on. because I was in New York presenting the last two days and had to get up at three to to be able to talk to all you guys. We are, my wife and I and a couple of other folks are the founders of York Glamping Adventure, which is in, it’s the Cumberland Plateau for all of us, SEC folks, but it’s equal distance.

Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga we have two properties. We, the first property, we cut our first tree down almost exactly two years ago to the day. And the second property we [00:05:00] opened six days ago. So we are in the midst of turning both those operational and it’s exciting times that you’re glamping adventure here, guys.

Mike Harrison: Oh, that’s awesome. And congrats on the the recent opening as well as happy birthday. And we’re not all in SEC country. Zach’s in the middle of the country in Kansas City, and I’m not as far west as you can go, but I’m in Phoenix. Our camera kind of looks like that on a map, right?

I’m over here, then there’s Zach. I was 

Matthew Bragstad: going to say, it works. We need to bow and then we’re done. 

Mike Harrison: SAC so are you all passionate, Peter, are you an Alabama fan? 

Peter Rodriguez: I’m a little unique in that we we manufacture and we are operating out of Alabama. I actually live in Michigan, and then our corporate headquarters is actually in Fishers, Indiana, right outside of Indianapolis. Our company itself operates all over the place, 

Mike Harrison: so that’s a no. Yeah. That’s a no. 

Peter Rodriguez: I haven’t lived down in Alabama long enough to be a Bama fan. So you’re probably a big blue. I’m guessing. 

Mike Harrison: [00:06:00] Depends on the week. Are you an Alabama fan with the trunk down, the elephant down on the bottom mat, or is that just, 

Matthew Bragstad: although I grew up in Minnesota I was cheering for the Timberwolves four days ago there against your Phoenix suns there, my friend.

So I’m still mostly Minnesota teams, but definitely when you are in our area, you cheer against the Crimson and White and you cheer for Big Orange at least in that part of Middle Tennessee. 

Mike Harrison: And they’re not my Phoenix Suns. I’m a Celtics fan. I grew up in Boston, so they’re not my Phoenix Suns.

Yeah, but I’d love to go to Val and Kerry, we were talking a little bit before the show kicked off about the Kentucky Derby. And so I’d love to, if you wouldn’t mind, just taking a couple moments to describe what that week looked like, both local from a tourism standpoint, but also at your property and how you handled it and what kind of special events you did, especially from a glamping experience.

It’d be great for us to hear that. 

Val Pifer: Yeah. Yeah. So We usually do a three night minimum for Derby. Because people come in pretty early, it’s like a bucket list item [00:07:00] for most people that are, coming to Louisville. And it’s something they’ve been planning for a year or two ahead of time, because it can get quite expensive.

It’s a full experience, They’re coming in Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday of that week. And then they’re staying pretty much all the way through Monday or even checking out on Sunday, but they’re wanting to experience all the things. So they might come in and they might do the track a couple of days.

They’re going to hit some bourbon distilleries. They’re going to see some things around town. So it’s pretty cool, and they’re coming to Glamp on the property with us. And we get to meet these people from all over and help them experience Louisville for the first time.

So it’s pretty neat. The event, so we purchased this property seven years ago. It’s two couples that own it. So it’s my husband, Nick and I, Mike and Val’s husband, Mike is, he has a home remodeling company. Essentially he’s a general contractor, so he runs that business full time. And then my husband, Nick, is a landscaper.

He has a landscaping [00:08:00] business, so they are very much involved with the business too. And so we’ve just finished this new event space that Mike’s Crew essentially built. And so there’s just been a lot of celebrating. 

Karey McDowell: Honestly, these last couple weeks we had a derby party on Derby night. We had our, it was actually a guy’s like 60th birthday.

Val Pifer: Yeah. 

Karey McDowell: So that was it was our second event in the space. But that was pretty cool to kick off Derby week with Yeah, kick off our building really on Derby week. 

Val Pifer: So it was pretty special. Guests in from like Australia and Canada and all these people and like all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah.

And then we had the Kentucky Burby the weekend before that, which was like 20 plus distillers and we were raising money for Parkinson’s, which is another thing we’re involved with. But yeah, it’s just been a good energy. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah. And I appreciate you sharing and CRR we own and operate but we also do third party and consulting and I, the first thing I hear you say and I almost turn my ears off after is you’d only do a three night minimum and I go why not a four or five or [00:09:00] even a six?

I couldn’t help myself. 

Val Pifer: Yeah, hey, we’re open to it. Derby is like one weekend that we do a three night, for that. And people buy, people are booking a year ahead of time, that’s why it’s gotta be four, five or six. Yeah, I think we could. 

Mike Harrison: Let’s get you more money.

Let’s let’s do, let’s start with five, five nights. That’s what I recommend. And we’ll see how quickly you can book those up. But tell me about I can see you guys are apparently, it looks like you’re sitting in one of your Airstreams now, right? Yeah that’s awesome. So tell me what, like different, what made you decide which types of options, and, different products to put.

In your park and are you looking to expand at different times? 

Val Pifer: Yeah, so it started with, it basically started with my husband Mike and I owned a 1967 Bambi. Which was like four square feet. Like literally it’s like a giant bed. And so we had that and he had gotten the bug [00:10:00] of remodeling something that was mobile and not, a house.

And then they, we bought this property and we honestly didn’t know what we were going to do with this property. Karey and I were lots of tears, not knowing what the heck was going to happen and we just started, they had a camper, so we just started camping here. And that’s when the wheels started turning.

And honestly, it became. Something where we had like a fascination with Airstreams themselves and had grown a passion for that. So just started seeking out in the beginning, seeking out places where we could source some and gut them and remodel them because he had that. That skill. And from there we started realizing it would be really cool to try to have one from each decade that they were created.

And we’re close to having all, I think it’s 10 decades that they were made. The one we’re in now is like our own, our newest one. It’s like 2022, which we had never done before. Once we had acquired a couple of them, we had a 60s and I think our second one was Grace, which was a 70s, not by design, we just, they just happened to be back to back [00:11:00] and that kind of lit a light bulb we should try to get an 80s one.

We have a Square Stream, which were, there were only like 300 of them made or something, so that was cool because those just don’t exist anymore. So yeah, it was just it really has been a really fun, in the beginning, we were just like, yeah. This could be something. Let’s just start throwing these campers up and seeing if anybody will come stay at this place.

And then they did. And so we all, yeah, which has been cool. The property was basically it’s 12 acres and it was overgrown garbage. There was a two acre pond here that was just pretty nasty. And it was just like, it’s been a labor of love completely, and we had it, like Val said, we rented Dottie and Grace initially and then there were the two homes on the property, and we gutted and remodeled those, and we just slowly started adding to the property and added a hiking trail, and, had Fish Wildlife come out and check out the water, and tell us how to take better care of it.

We fixed the dam, we put aerators in, [00:12:00] we, Started having the water checked regularly to make sure that it was healthy. And we started adding beaches. We have five beaches and on every beach, there’s canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards. So when you stay with us, you get assigned to a beach with other, people staying on the property, or if you’re renting three Airstreams, we make sure that you all get to stay together and.

It worked really well during the COVID craziness because we were able to social distance and spread people out. And then we built out another cluster of Airstreams during that time. And so in the big grand plan, we always dreamt about having this event space and it happened a lot sooner, to be honest, when we, than we thought we were managing all the events out of this event tent for three years, we were doing weddings and it was labor intensive and stressful and So we’re finally like almost at the point where we’re not going to build anymore.

We’re going to maybe add a few more airstreams, but like the large [00:13:00] projects, I think. So now it’s like looking ahead into 2025 okay, what’s it going to look to just operate? You know what I mean? Yeah. And just enhance the experience. Yeah. Continue to just enhance the experience. Just evaluate all things.

But we’ve been very much in a, a growth phase. 

Mike Harrison: Great. And drive more revenue. Five night in a row. 

Val Pifer: Yes. 

Mike Harrison: And so when when did you guys purchase? 

Val Pifer: 2017. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: You’ve now had it for seven years, so maybe walk us through, because, there are a lot of people I’m an instructor for the American Glamping University, and, it’s designed and geared towards folks who are looking to get into the glamping industry.

Some people who have business experience, some don’t. Some have development experience, some don’t. But it’s a very in depth curriculum that goes through marketing, develop, financing, construction, zoning, Business planning, et cetera. And so I think it’d be helpful for folks. [00:14:00] You 

Karey McDowell: guys, 

Mike Harrison: I don’t know if you’re familiar with the AGA, Ruben who’s actually normally on this call runs that.

And anybody can pre register for that. But maybe you could walk us through the journey. How did I think you already answered how do you select the site, right? You basically, it sounds like you camped there and then bought it. ’cause you loved it. 

Val Pifer: Her husband bought it, her husband bought it behind 

Karey McDowell: Hey, we bought, you know that land we’ve been talking about

Yeah. We bought it. We were like, oh no. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, 

Mike Harrison: I’m sorry to mean to touch on such a sensitive subject. But what were some of the, hurdles and challenges, as a, developer. And then, Matt and Pete and Zach, you can all weigh in with the same stories after they go here.

But, what are some of those challenges, if you could tell somebody who’s listening, who’s looking to build and develop and own their own, glamping resort, what were some of those challenges and how’d you overcome them in the beginning? 

Val Pifer: Our biggest challenge was the zoning for us.

I’m really envious of you Matt, just to know that you don’t have, [00:15:00] honestly, that was like a great learning experience. It was very hard in our situation. It was hard because we had opposition and now looking back, I understand why people are, are opposed to it. It’s changed, right? So there’s change happening literally in their backyard, but this property had been sitting for a couple of decades, it was overgrown.

And when you hear the word, Trailer, whatever. I don’t know, there was just a stigma associated with what they thought it was going to be people coming in and out of here and and so looking back, I understand why, cause we’re butted up against part residential and part commercial. So the people that are in the residential established areas, we’re just worried and scared about what the change was going to be and how it was going to affect the noise, the, all the things.

So that was hard for us. It was a long, it was a year plus probably process for us. But I guess my biggest advice would be just like stick with it and like align with your local politicians and supporters and all of those things and [00:16:00] just, just stick with it because it is a hundred percent possible and just don’t give up on what your mission is because, And in the end, it like ended up, people ended up coming around to it and seeing it, but it was a very intense process, but so glad that it’s been like this.

Yeah. And and looking back, I think we honestly opened ourselves up more for criticism than what was required. Cause we did all the neighborhood meetings, we’re like meeting with these people face to face. And they’re ripping us apart. Like they knew who, and we were like, please we are family oriented. Please know that. And I think we leaned in and gave more probably than what we, had to, but I think in the long run it has served us well because we’re all about building relationships and locking arms with like minded people and having them be a part of the experience and be a part of our team.

And that’s who we do business with. Same thing goes for anybody we’re subcontracting with or [00:17:00] doing Using as vendors, things like that. So we’re really working to build the right relationships and surround ourselves with just good people, and so I think that’s really served us well and got us over that hump because it was scary.

It was scary. It was challenging, but I’m really glad that we landed where we did. And I think the neighborhood really. has welcomed us with open arms and are proud of what we’ve created here. We’ve come full circle. In 

Karey McDowell: this neighborhood. 

Val Pifer: Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, thanks for sharing and I think I’ve got a couple, but Zach probably has more than me, horror stories of zoning.

It’s, permitting, entitlement, whatever you want to call it. I’ve got a couple 

Zachary Stoltenberg: questions both for Val and Carrie, but also Matt and Peter. When you guys went through that process were you bootstrapping or were you having to do it all yourself? Or did you hire any consultants, any professionals to help you navigate that process?

Any architects or civil engineers or anybody, or were you [00:18:00] guys just trying to do it all yourself? Because 

Karey McDowell: a 

Zachary Stoltenberg: year seems like a really long time. 

Val Pifer: It was a lot of, It was also a lot of city things where people, departments weren’t talking to each other. We are a unicorn, right? So we have a pond, it’s not a pool.

We have a, like we have all these things that encompass that within the city of, or within our county that they didn’t know what to do with us, right? They didn’t know how to categorize us. And so there’s a lot of that, but yeah, it was a long time and yes, we did work with architects and surveyors and all the things to help guide us through that process.

Which 

Mike Harrison: was great. I think the transition, if you have been walking through your journey and how you overcame it and some of those same challenges. 

Matthew Bragstad: Totally. I can absolutely 100 percent reflect on they don’t know what to do with you. The number of times I was told we’re going to make up a different, we’ve already consulted with every other county in Tennessee and we’re going to do it this way and we’re going to see how it works.

And then basically what we’re doing with you, Bragstead, we’re going to [00:19:00] then re look at to see if we should roll that out statewide. So I can a hundred percent relate to that. Yeah, so we, we cut our first tree down. We’d owned the property six, eight months. My wife’s a real estate agent here in Tennessee.

We have a notorious habit of buying properties that she loves. And then I had to figure out how to pay for them. So I was like, huh, we should put some rentals on these so I can pay for my wife’s real estate addiction. And so we had bought this property just cause we fell in love with it. And it had been very similar to Val, you and Carrie, it had been just abused.

The fields, you could tell where they were 10 years ago. And the, there was just, it was just a lot of abuse. And so unlike you guys, there’s no zoning in DeKalb County. There’s no licensure. And I just spent a lot of time working directly with my electrical inspector or my septic team or the county or the assessor.

The assessor in my world [00:20:00] was huge because he has now parceled off just the tiniest little area around every one of our domes. And that’s the only, we’re only paying commercial tax on these little like quarter acre pieces around each of the domes. Wow. And so we could still stay in Greenbelt for the other 72 acres on that property.

So it’s been, and on the other property, we just conjoined it to a bigger 99 acre property that was already in Green Acres, and they’re just allowing us to do it up in, in Putnam County. So our journey was very different there. The one thing I would say that everybody that’s looking at doing this.

If you’re moving your utilities any distance, significant distance, they’re going to cost way more than you think. And especially if you’re trying to do combinations of above ground and below ground for your internet and your power. If you’re on city water, that’s a game. So one of the things I would say is you’ve got to get really smart on that really early on.

And that, that would have been probably our biggest aha. [00:21:00] And thank goodness we got really smart on it. Cause now everything else we’ve built, I’ve come off this main trunk that costs probably twice what I expected. And I already was planning on a hundred thousand dollars for that. So for us, we opened.

We got the first tree down two years ago. We had our first dome. We did two Pacific domes out of Portland. We had the first one open in October for Halloween, the second one open for Valentine’s Day. We then went, we’re very proud members of the AGA and so went to the AGA show two ago in Aurora, ran into the folks at DeWARD, Edward and team from EJH, and the DeWARD tent groups.

Thought those looked cool and fun. That, that meeting the woman from Fields, Eileen, said be the party, the cocktail party that you would want to go to when people were asking her, how did you decide on what you build? So we just keep building the house, the party that we would want to go to my wife and I and so as a result of that we have four of those on the property.

They’re all very private, you can’t [00:22:00] see the other ones from there. We actually, as a result of all of that, we actually won AGA Member of the Year last year, which was an incredible honor with Ruben. And so we got to have all kinds of fun there. The first dome we built is one of the top domes in the whole world.

It’s been featured in Forbes and Condé Nast and all the state level tourism stuff. It’s been it’s been on national, it’s been in Europe, it’s been featured by Airbnb four times, and so it’s really exciting. We’ve now hosted In the year and a half, we’ve had, we’ve been hosting guests, we’ve had a thousand people now come through 175 five star reviews on Airbnb, another hundred five star reviews on Google.

We have over 500 entries in our journals. And overall, it’s been a wild success. We’ve hosted 46 states, so I’m saying it on this call, if you are in West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, or New Hampshire, [00:23:00] I can cut you a deal because we ought to tip those off, but 14 countries as well.

And so I think the biggest surprise is how wide we could draw from because I expected Indianapolis down to Alabama, over to Atlanta and then St. Louis. So I expected that five hours around Nashville and that has not been the case at all. We’ve had people fly in from France to spend a week in our domes and look at the waterfalls.

That was the other thing. We’re on a lake. That is one of the top boating lakes in this, this part of Tennessee. I expected people to be dragging their boats there and spending a week and then, docking their boats at one of the marinas and we’ve had one boat in a year and a half.

But the waterfalls have been, is what everyone’s there for. So this, the part of Tennessee we’re in is really known for the waterfalls. There’s, I think, a dozen ranked in the top 150 in the country. And that’s what people come for. And that, those are the two, I would say, biggest surprises is how far people are willing to come.

We have somebody that has booked out [00:24:00] three years now. They fly in from Philadelphia every year for Thanksgiving, stay in the same zone and then stay in Dome and then fly out at the end of Thanksgiving. We’re the only reason why they come to Tennessee. While us in much better weather than in Philadelphia in the end of November.

It’s. It’s spectacular weather in Tennessee that time of year. So I would say that for us is it wraps it up. There’s a lot of different ways we could go but I would say the friendships we’ve made. We are now sitting as board members of the Tourism Board of the Upper Cumberland. We’re sitting as members as the Tourism Board of both DeKalb and Putnam County.

So they are constantly bringing us. We’ve been featured on PBS. That all came from those relationships and it’s made it really fun. Because similar, Val, to what you and Kerry said, there is a lot of really hard days where this wasn’t fun. And the only other piece of advice I’d give is, put your business plan, dot all your I’s, check them, make sure it’s your, you believe it when you get into this.

And then every time you look back, go back to that business plan and go no, it is worth it. [00:25:00] Because when I come out of this period there’s a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. Because there will be, Lots of hard days as a builder and then operator in this whole journey. So that’s us.

Mike Harrison: So I took two things away from that. One is you probably will only ever get 49 states because I don’t think West Virginians travel out of their state. 

Matthew Bragstad: We’re close though. Like we, we’re going to figure it out where we’re close that they can drive. 

Mike Harrison: For Thanksgiving, what I’m hearing is a six night minimum now for Thanksgiving is one

Matthew Bragstad: You say that, but here’s the funny thing. We were sitting at, occupancies in the mid thirties. We changed to a one night and we jumped to occupancies in the eighties and it actually helps our a DR because we make $25 out of every cleaning. So if people are flipping that dome we don’t do the cleaning.

We have a company, but we make $25 outta that. So it increased our a DR by $25. And it jumped our overall occupancy by 40 percent going to single night. Don’t disagree on all of the big [00:26:00] events. 4th of July on this lake is insane. We have a ESPN televised wakeboard competition on this lake.

That’s insane. I think the other thing 

Val Pifer: is Now, what is the lake? 

Matthew Bragstad: Center Hill Lake is what it’s called. So it’s a dammed lake. Tennessee only has one naturally formed lake. You said it really 

Mike Harrison: quickly. What was it? 

Matthew Bragstad: Center Hill Lake. It’s a massive lake, 750 miles of shoreline, but it’s a dam river. It’s six rivers, but there’s four waterfalls that actually fall into the lake.

So it’s really pretty gorgeous. But yeah, no, I think there’s a, there’s another interesting thing that, so the new property we just opened is we’ve called it affectionately the crazy house. If you can imagine. A Swiss Chalet and an Asian Pagoda had a baby that was raised by Hugh Hefner.

That’s the house that we bought. There’s one room that had all black stucco on the inside with naked lady, working fountains, and [00:27:00] red shea carpet. It was the craziest house. And we’ve done this huge remodel on it. We’ve basically gutted it and started again. But it is the most incredible house.

Alan Jackson filmed a Ford commercial at it in the 80s. It was written up in Home and Garden in the 70s. It’s this, it was at one point in the 70s, it was the largest house in Putnam County. So it’s this it’s an absolutely crazy house. But what we’re finding there is, we’ve already had four weddings booked.

We’ve only been on Airbnb for four days. We’ve already had 57 nights booked. We’ve And people are looking to do weddings and events, similar to Val and Carrie to what you’re talking about, and we aren’t thinking that way, if they’re, we don’t, we’re not thinking about how to park 50, 50 cars at this place, or, what kind of a charging system we would do if they’re wanting to bring that many, because, views of the property when you put 50 people in a space like, it’s a huge house, a thousand square feet, it can handle it, but, Yeah that’s the new nuance of [00:28:00] being a clamping operator where you’re always just pivoting.

I always think of that Friends episode where they’re trying to get the couch up the stairs where it’s pivot. Yeah, it feels like that’s pretty much life. 

Peter Rodriguez: You’ve always got to be open, right? That’s what I’ve seen throughout this process is you never know what’s going to come and what’s going to hit and what isn’t, 

Matthew Bragstad: right?

Amen. Amen, Peter. That’s 100 percent and you don’t, you, here’s another one we thought, we assumed people would be coming, they want to be fires, they want to enjoy the wilderness, everyone wants a hot tub. So that was another pivot we had to do. 

Peter Rodriguez: Hot tubs, pools, ping pong tables, you name it, right?

All of the fun extra things. 

Matthew Bragstad: One of the reasons we refused to, because we refuse to put TVs in any of our properties, that’s just, That’s a line that we decided we would have. This is about, connecting by disconnecting. So we’ve gotten four star reviews, even though it’s all over our write up, that we don’t have TVs because we didn’t have a TV.

Yeah, that’s the other thing. You just never know what people are going to [00:29:00] react to. 

Mike Harrison: Thank you. And so we’ve heard from a couple owner operators, and so I think it’s a good transition now to, some suppliers, so Peter, if you wouldn’t mind walking us through what, what you do.

Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, so we’re a little bit unique in that we’re a supplier of container based structures, so we have park model RVs that are on wheels that actually came from, originally from our disaster relief division because we needed an ability to be able to do quick deployments, and then we built out the best unit, aesthetically that people would like to live in and also hang out in, and that brought us into this glamping world.

From there is actually the starting point of where we started to look at the short term and medium term kind of rentals and glamping markets, where we partnered with Poplar Point RV Resort up in Athens to go and put some of our units out there and almost make this [00:30:00] little, 11 unit glamping resort, all that are container based, whether they’re permanently set or whether they’re on, some of our models that are on wheels.

We on the supply base side, because we’re a modular supplier and we convert shipping containers, across the United States, what’s a little bit unique is we had already not necessarily battled, but, been through the war of compliance and education of what our structures are Val and Kerry, right?

I, it resonates with us in the fact that. The minute you tell someone what you’re going to do, especially if you’re going to the municipality and the building inspectors and all of that they’ll just look at you with a blank stare. You want to do what? And then that doesn’t, there is no rule book for that, right?

Then you’ve got to follow them up the chain. And that’s what we’ve typically found is because we focused on heavily on the compliance side with our individual builds that we did. When we got to the point that it was setting up our [00:31:00] own villages, that became a lot easier because a lot of it is just education of what the structure is, how does the compliance look?

Is it modular? Does it have seals? What does that, all of that look like on the backend? And then from there, it’s the easy stuff, right? Foundation connections, what you’re going to end up spending for moving utilities, right? Which, depending on how far, right? Matt said, that can always.

Open your eyes really quick, right? But yeah, on the supply base side, we we offer units that are, 20 foot, 40 foot, up to 1, 500, 2, 000 square foot units. And then we also do bathhouses and a bunch of other little commercial applications. 

Mike Harrison: Are these classified, excuse me are you delivering them, I should say, as park model type units so they don’t have to be building permitted, or are they more permanent structures and platformed, 

Peter Rodriguez: or?

We can do both. What we learned is every application, depending on the city, depending on the zoning, needs both. You’ve got to [00:32:00] be open minded and have the compliance to be available. We also, the aesthetics of the glamping owner also, what the envision, matt brought up not wanting TVs.

Some people are gonna look at our 20 foot container that’s up on wheels with, giant windows and they’re gonna think it looks really cool like an Airstream. But others are gonna say, I, I just want it off the wheels. And the minute you pull it off, the wheels, there’s a whole new ball, ball of wax that you’ve gotta start working through.

So that’s why we offer both options. 

Val Pifer: Cool. 

Mike Harrison: Thank you. Very interesting. I think it’s, we continue to see more and more different types of, glamping and Nick and I, or Zach and I were both with Nick at Live Oak and, a couple weeks ago we all had the discussion, what is glamping, right?

And, like what you’re describing, glamping really can be anything that is a non traditional RV, that provides a lodging option. It can be one of these containers, it could be a luxury tent, it could be an airstream, it could be Whatever the person defines as glamping it’s a very individual [00:33:00] definition, I think.

Matthew Bragstad: We’re defining a crazy house as glamping, too. You could define it as anything. A house with naked lady statues on the inside should count as glamping. What’s a little 

Peter Rodriguez: unique, too, is you’ve got, hotel stays, right? And this is based off of what I see every day, but since COVID, hotel stays have to have been.

Skyrocketing down because everyone wants that flexibility to be able to cook and have an area that’s their own, that they’re not, all huddled up in one big building. So in, in knowing that and seeing that’s also where you’re being open minded, where you have people that may be working remote there, and Maybe they’re staying there medium term where it’s a month long stay or a couple months stay over to the individuals that are down, doing plant shutdown work and those type of things.

You just don’t know who’s going to be at it and what they actually envision glamping to be. I use my wife as a perfect example where, she’s not really a camper, but this [00:34:00] is, the glamping world and all of the offerings that are out there now. It’s a fancy hotel, right?

It’s a really unique stay. It’s that cool factor and it can be anything, right? Anything from a bamboo structure to, a big metal box. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, that’s why I think it’s very independent. So I want to go to Zach and I want to hear some of your thoughts. Thoughts and opinions on some of these zoning issues.

I also want to talk about your experience at the design show and your entry into the glamping world too 

Zachary Stoltenberg: go ahead. A couple of thoughts just in listening to everybody, like Mike said we asked that question at the Live Book Symposium a couple of weeks ago. And I think the thing that I settled on is it’s a focus on experience over accommodation.

And I think that’s what sets glamping as an industry apart. Mike said, I spent last weekend out in Las Vegas at the Hospitality Design Show. I was there with some great manufacturing partners of ours to launch a new turnkey glamping unit called the Nomad. And it’s a, self contained [00:35:00] knockdown kit, ships to your site.

Set price, single supplier everything down to the furniture is included in it. And so we, we debuted that unit at HD overwhelming response. We had, a lot of very important people and the upper echelons of traditional hospitality at that show. And just really positive, comments and response from everybody.

We had people, Probably close to a thousand people that went through the Nomad tent on the trade show floor over two and a half days. So very exciting, but I also got to see a lot of really new things and cool things and came home with some great ideas that we can incorporate into design.

And that’s actually the question that I have for each of you guys that I want to hear from you on with that focus on experience, right? And we’ve heard it alluded to of you, you need the paddleboards, the kayaks. You need stuff for people to do. Recently we’ve seen a bunch of announcements different companies.

I saw, two weeks ago, Timberhut announced that they’re doing a self contained spa unit [00:36:00] with a sauna, a hot tub, and a cold plunge, right? We’re starting to see manufacturers in the industry focus a little bit more on those experience pieces. So I want to hear from each of you guys What is something that’s in the works?

I know Val and Carrie, you said you just finished this event center and you’re done building anything for a while. But what’s, what are your future plans? What’s something you want to add? Matt, same question. What’s in the works of experience wise, what you guys still want to add or iterate in the future.

And then Peter, what are you hearing from your guests your clients, the people that are buying your units what are people asking for, and it’s, there been any focus onto some of these amenity and experience side and what is your company doing to address that, that need?

Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, I guess I can start. So I’ll use this as a good example. We’ve got a customer out in California that’s, looking to go and develop out in Joshua Tree, right? Which is really cool location, right? Really beautiful. And when they’re [00:37:00] talking about the amenities and some of those extra things, right?

They’re talking about an area to be able to go do yoga and, relaxation area. And then on top of it, an open, we get a lot of requests for open kind of communal dining where you’ve got a one set, 20 foot or 40 foot full on kitchen that they’ll be able to cook and then you can put a deck right up on top so they can be going and looking at different areas and things.

Between that and also outdoor patio areas, I think those are some of the more relevant items that we’ve had requests for from customers. Beyond that, what we’ve seen on our own developments is, dog walking trails and, dog parks where they can go and run free, all of those type of things.

That really comes and adds value beyond just the cool hot tub, traditional items. 

Zachary Stoltenberg: Are you guys building modular dog washes yet for the dog [00:38:00] parks? 

Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, like we’re starting to get a lot of those inquiries as well, right? The nice part of building a box in a box is you can do about anything. So that can be anything from a mobile food stand to, an open air patio area where everyone can hang out and do different things, right?

Maybe put a TV there. I don’t know, man. Depends on the area. 

Matthew Bragstad: You’ll get some four star reviews if you put, if you don’t, apparently. We’ll put like a 20 inch one. We only have that four four star reviews and two of them are because of no TVs. I don’t it’s a great question, Zach. I didn’t even think about like dog parks and things like that.

We started with as it’s our passion project, we, A wanted to take, we’re on this incredibly topographical land. It is cliffs and valleys everywhere around us. And so we took advantage. We, I call them my Swiss Family Robinson decks, the 26 year old version of me that built them. I was like, he was sick one day.

I was like, yes, you can stay home today [00:39:00] and not work, but you’re gonna have to watch Swiss Family Robinson from circa whatever that was, 1960 something. So we have taken huge advantage of the topography. In, in, everything is very Instagrammable. We’ve also, back in that, do the dinner party or the party that you’re going to attend.

My wife, we’ve designed these glamping structures. Have 3, 000 mattresses in them. We have put every detail and there’s been disadvantage of that. We’ve had stuff stolen. We’ve had a lot of stuff ruined in the year and a half. So you have to emotionally detach from some of those Instagrammable things that, that you love.

But at the same time, it’s that’s what we believe in. We want everyone to come in and, we love it when we’re hearing this, or wow, or any of that. So that’s that we’re definitely playing with saunas. We personally have saunas. We love them. So we added one to the crazy house and one of our four tents is going to have a sauna, hot plunge, outside shower.

So we’re going to [00:40:00] see, again, everything is experimental because You don’t know if the beanbag boards are going to I think the biggest one for us that’s coming we really taking advantage of water. Both my wife and I are water babies. We both were born in Minnesota, land of 10, 000 lakes. And so we have a one property back to our property addiction that has a 40 foot private waterfall.

And that’s going to be the, for us, experiential. We’re really going to start to play with ideas of how to take best advantage of a, four acre piece that has a 40 foot private waterfall that we can build in and around under. We have a lot of options there and so that’s what we’re playing with next to always just try to take the biggest advantage of our natural Beauty in Middle Tennessee.

Karey and Val, I’ll shut up now. I’m sorry, I get so excited. 

Val Pifer: No, it’s so interesting. I would say we’re all just I know, I’m interested to hear what you We’re all [00:41:00] taking, like the big build is finished, and then Derby happened, so we’re like this week, we’re like, whoo so We are all about the experience.

We’re all about the experience. So our whole brand is like all inclusive. So we want, we remember what it was like to do all the kinds of camping, from tent camping, to pulling an RV to all the things and all of the headaches with little kids potential. Yeah. And all the things that pop up and no pun intended, and just all the headaches that could potentially come, even though there’s a lot of fun, there’s a lot of challenges and sometimes it.

Can prohibit people from wanting to do that experience because it’s intimidating. So we want to provide this experience where you really only have to bring your clothes and your food and we try to provide everything else. So part of our current amenities are like, and experience is that like you say, you get the boats and all that.

It’s all included. You don’t have to pay for it. We give you firewood, charcoal, lighter fluid, all the things. And then we have a games lawn that has, Cornhole, Shuffleboard, Pickleball, like [00:42:00] all the games you can think of, so one thing I would say we are hoping to add on to is more of that kind of stuff in the future, maybe in another area.

And also like an outdoor kitchen kind of thing. So we, like maybe in our pavilion area, like every unit has their own either full kitchen or an Airstream sized, micro mini kitchen. Everything you can, pots, pans and everything in every unit. You can cook anything and most Airstreams you can cook like cinnamon rolls if you want.

So it’s great. But we are also partnered with GE. GE Appliances. One of their plants is literally like a quarter mile down the road from our resort. And they’re just now getting in the RV. So they have a recreation living line now, which you all may be aware of, but they’re really trying to promote their new offerings.

So we’re a test market for them. We get all their new things and we get to test them out in the units and get feedback. 

Karey McDowell: That’s been our goal. 

Val Pifer: And do photo shoots and like we’re getting some e coolers and there’s that clamp that glamping versus camping [00:43:00] concept that we’re going to do some fun spins on that with their marketing team.

But so all of our units are outfitted with all GE like mostly all GE and it’s and then we envision and they do too, like someday having an outdoor kitchen. As they start to evolve into more of those appliances within this new department. And so that’ll be cool. Like you can cook in all the units as it is, but it would be cool to have, I don’t know, a green it, whatever they come up with.

It’s unique to them. And the e coolers are super cool because you can keep your popsicles in your steak. Everything can be frozen on one side and refrigerated on the other. So I don’t know. 

Mike Harrison: I tuned out after you said cinnamon rolls. I just didn’t hear you. 

Val Pifer: If you 

Mike Harrison: ship those to Phoenix, let me know, but Zach, I’d like to throw the question back to you since, you and I both probably see, dozens of different properties and, but, you can see what the trends are.

What are you seeing as the trends of people that [00:44:00] are adding, different amenities or options in the glamping world now? 

Zachary Stoltenberg: We work with a lot of different people all across the country and we actually just Matt signed a new client that’s just outside of Chattanooga has 496 acres and three of those incredible waterfalls that have been Private forever.

So yeah, I absolutely know it. We spent all. All week with them, a couple weeks ago, walking the property and mapping all the trails and everything. So it’s, yes, I absolutely, I get it. And I love that you’ve made that your focus, because I think that’s absolutely the successful way to do it there. Big trends, I would say, echo some of what was discussed, Peter brought up being pet friendly.

Yeah, that’s a discussion we’ve had with a lot of different clients. I’ve had clients that have tried it. It really didn’t work. They had lots of damage. It wasn’t worth it to them. And they’ve just gone, no, no pets allowed. I’ve had others that are like, that’s [00:45:00] 90 percent of our guests have an animal.

And that, that’s a huge reason people stay with us is that we’re pet friendly. I’ve seen both sides of that, but I think. A bigger focus on, and that came up with the Live Oak Symposium too really catering to that. It’s one thing to say, yeah, we’re pet friendly and we’ll take a, 50, 100 pet deposit.

It’s another thing when they check into their unit and there’s a dog bed there and there’s a little baggie with dog treats and, you’ve got merch in your store, the collapsible water balls or the little booties if you want to take your dog out hiking with you, there’s a difference between, I think being open to animals or being pet friendly and really including the pets in the experience piece, the same way you’re focusing on it for the guests.

So that’s definitely something that we’ve seen as an emerging trend is not being just pet friendly, but actually creating amenities and things for pets both in the unit and on the property. A second one I would say is a focus on health and [00:46:00] wellness. You mentioned having areas for yoga.

Having massage studios or having an on site masseuse, or maybe it’s contracted somebody that comes out and provides that as a service. I saw something absolutely incredible at HD last week from a Japanese company called Daiwa that’s a self contained massage chair. They look like a giant egg.

It’s a capsule pod that you sit down in. It’s got a touch screen and, that’s been a big challenge for a lot of the owners and operators that we’ve worked with have said, yeah, we want massage, we want spa, but we’re not sure logistically how we’re going Like, is that staff as a person?

Do they have to schedule that for a specific day or time? And then we have to make sure they’re available. We can create the space. I can build a tent or deck or platform, but the staffing side has continued to be a challenge. And I saw these as This is something you buy, you plug in, it’s turnkey, people can come down and use it anytime.

[00:47:00] And I spent about 20 minutes in one of those chairs, it was very difficult to get up. I just wanted to sit there, the rest of the show was awesome. So I think, yeah, focus on health and wellness. We’ve seen soaker tubs, thunder rooms, rain rooms massage suites saunas, all of that. I think that’s going to It’s been emerging, but I think it’s going to become more of an expectation as the guest expectations continue to rise industry wide.

I think that’s something that more and more sites are focusing on and going to roll out. The last one is the last thing you guys hit on the outdoor kitchens, outdoor spaces saw another really cool vendor at HD that had this really awesome completely self contained, modular little outdoor kitchen unit it’s all antique, it’s got a hard lid that, the thing closes up, it’s completely watertight, it’s great.

But you hit a button and the lid raises up and there’s a TV. Sorry, Matt. There’s a TV that, rotate 360 degrees. The [00:48:00] other piece lifts off and becomes an extended workstation, a bar top. There’s a sink. There’s room for a grill there. All the lighting, everything is included. They had them with umbrellas a turnkey outdoor kitchen unit for about five grand.

And I think as more operators get past, That initial okay we built eight units. We’ve got 10, 12 airstreams. Now we want to focus on experience. I think those are the things that we’re going to start to see is how do people glam up all of their accommodations, how they kick it up to that next notch, that next level.

And what does that do from an ADR perspective? 

Matthew Bragstad: Can I add one more thing? Just because what Val and Carrie said triggered it for me about their G. So what we realized, again pivot, is that we’re in very rural Tennessee. Smithville is a town of 6, 000, historic downtown. 

Zachary Stoltenberg: I’ve been to Smithville.

Matthew Bragstad: Yeah, and rural is cool now, especially if you’re somebody that’s coming in from Philadelphia that doesn’t get a lot of rural. And so we started [00:49:00] partnering and putting on our site everything from the florist will drop flowers off. You can buy floral packages that are waiting in the domes. The local butchers will drop off meat packages similar Val and Kerry to what you were talking about.

We have one of the beekeepers locally, they’ll put their stuff, all of these very local goods now are on our website. We make literally thousands of dollars every year or every month out of this 5, 10 per gift. And they, these are local people that will drop that stuff off. They can, people are here for a week, they can send their laundry.

into a local that somebody will show up, grab their laundry, take it into town, do it at their, and then drop it off the next day. And those connections 

Val Pifer: It’s not like part of what they spend for their booking. It’s something that they add separately. 

Matthew Bragstad: We have all of these as add ons as part of it. And that people are, the number of people that use the florist option, [00:50:00] for instance, there’s a huge farmer’s market, Amish farmer’s market, that they put their stuff on there that people can order.

A basket of vegetables to have dropped off at their dome. And then all these local people love it because they’re getting on, they’re getting a stream of income. We love it because it makes our experience different than the hotel. As Peter said, there’s no hotels that are partnering with all the locals.

And it was said that both glamping shows that when people are glamping, they actually are exploring the area. And we have this cute little Smithville, as you’ve seen, Zachary, it’s a cute little downtown that people go and explore and anything we can do to be. A, our local chamber of commerce loves it because we’re now, not just trying to get everyone onto our property and keep them there until they leave and then they leave the area, we’re trying to actually encourage them.

We have co promotions with the local kayaking group, we have that rents kayaks, the ones that canoes the cany, the one that rents Motorboats, the one that the local bars and restaurants where they do, they [00:51:00] can show that they’re from, they’re staying at your Glamping Adventure and get discounts. So that’s the other part of experience where it doesn’t always have to be on site, bougie, on site expensive.

It can be, it costs us nothing. It costs us our website or not even our website, just the package and then some inner connections to these local vendors. And it’s made it really easy to create an experience that nobody else can have. 

Val Pifer: So are they issuing some type of code or something where they get a percentage off because they’re staying at your 

Matthew Bragstad: Yep, for the restaurants that way.

But if they’re ordering flowers, they literally just pay for the flowers. They pay for them directly. And then we get, I think it’s 5 per delivery that we get. I don’t care what that number is, just as long as it’s something that’s adding to 

Mike Harrison: your DoorDash fee. 

Matthew Bragstad: It is, that’s exactly what it is, 5 for every delivery.

Mike Harrison: It’s interesting because I think, we. I was just talking with a developer yesterday, and we were talking about and his is a [00:52:00] very unique property a very well known, nationally renowned shop, and they want to build 40 glamping units and continue and perpetuate the reputation.

And one of the questions they’re talking about is how do you monetize some of the experiences and the adventure and the local, because that’s what they’ve focused on and how they’ve succeeded is the vibe. And I think You know, it resonates, what Zach was saying is the pet, pet piece, I think, is so important.

Matt clearly is going to welcome elephants to his next property. I 

Matthew Bragstad: totally build a property in Africa. That’s going to be where I need to go next. There’s experience. 

Mike Harrison: But I also think, I think what, as we talk to Pete and, Val and Matt and, I’ve talked to numerous people.

I think what’s so exciting about this industry is that no property is the same and they never will be. Like, if you go to the hotel industry a courtyard in Parsippany, New Jersey is going to be exactly like a courtyard in Los Angeles, California, and you will never know that you are in two different courtyards in two different parts of the country.

And a [00:53:00] lot of the RV parks are that way too, but I think what’s so exciting and unique about the glamping space is, just like we talked about, there is no one definition of glamping. It’s independent to individual, to each person, to each property, to each experience, and I think What Matt is describing will never be replicable to anyone else other than Matt.

What Val described, what Zach sees in all the properties, what Pete delivers to each property. And I think that’s what’s the most exciting about glamping is It isn’t a transaction. It’s an interaction, right? And it is the experience as Zach mentioned earlier. And so I think everything that you guys, talked about, really is a hallmark for that.

So we got to wrap up here, but I think there are some takeaways today. Five night or six night minimum, depending on your preference. I think the takeaway is that 50 years old is a good age for Matt and everybody else should celebrate. Clearly Val and Carrie are going to get into the cinnamon roll shipping business to Phoenix.[00:54:00] 

And you can pretty much put anything into a box according to Pete. So I appreciate everybody joining today. Thank you for joining MC Fireside Chats. We’ll see you next time, everyone. 

Thank you. Thanks guys.

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host Brian Searl. Have a suggestion for a show idea?

Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground. com. Get your daily dose of news from moderncampground. com and be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor [00:55:00] hospitality.