One of my favorite nursery rhymes, when I was a little girl, was “There Was An Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.” I used to listen to my mom read it to me and all sorts of visions would dance around my little head about what it must be like to live in a shoe.

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Fast forward to when I was in my mid-20s and took a job in a little Pennsylvania town called York. Every single day for five years, I’d drive by a ginormous shoe that sat along the side of Route 30 which is the highway that connects Lancaster with York and I’d wonder what it was like inside the giant shoe. But I never stopped.

And then I moved away and the shoe left my mind until a few years ago when I was driving through town on my way to Gettysburg with my little boy and I spotted the shoe from the side of the road and pointed it out to him. But again, we didn’t stop.

All the years and all the times I could have stopped to investigate the shoe but didn’t isn't lost on me. So, when I was looking up Airbnb options and stumbled on THE SHOE, I literally stopped in my tracks.

The incredible giant shoe of York, Pennsylvania is now a rental where visitors can literally find out what it’s like to sleep in a shoe!

The shoe actually has a name and that name is “The Haines House.” The shoe was built in 1948 at a cost of $26,000 and the purpose of the house was to serve as guest accommodations for a local shoe store chain, a genius way to advertise, really.

When the builder, Mahlon Haines, died in 1962, the house was gifted to his employees who sold it just two years later to a dentist who used the property as an ice cream parlor and place to tour. In 1987, Haines’ granddaughter brought the shoe back into the family by purchasing it from the dentist.  The shoe then passed hands three more times before finding its way into the hands of the current owners who have renovated it, keeping pieces of its fascinating history, and now offering it as a bed and breakfast.

And, if you feel like maybe, you’ve seen the shoe house before and not because you were driving through York, you may have seen it on television when it was part of the eighth season of The Amazing Race or when it was featured on HGTV in 2007.

Step Inside This Unique Shoe House Rental

A popular roadside attraction. the Haines Shoe House is now a rental which means you can finally find out what it's really like to sleep in a piece of history and a ginormous shoe!

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