(“can i get a link or something?” goes one comment. His latest video slowly pans over an A-frame Airbnb in Battle Lake, and it already has more than 25,000 views. Meanwhile, Sam seems to have found his formula. “Timing is a little hilarious with a baby arriving in six days.” “Yes, we have…wild!” she responded by email. “Have you been flooded with booking requests?” I asked manager Tessa Larson, Anne’s daughter-in-law, yesterday. ![]() “So, with an agreement from her, a nod from the county, and some engineering plans, we began.” (There are other grain-bin Airbnbs, I should point out-mostly across the Midwest, it seems, unsurprisingly.) An aunt happened to have several decommissioned grain bins near Kensington. “We have done lots of research, visited with architects, and played with design concepts ever since,” Anne told me by email. Anne and David Larson were inspired by an article in farmer-focused magazine Mother Earth News, which pushes for fashionable upcycling. Or, TikTok-ready, I guess.īefore repurposing the bins, Gathered Oaks’ owners mulled over the idea for about 10 years. Throw in a rock-basin sink, a headboard of reused wood, and an old-timey window frame that’s now a bathroom mirror, and it’s Instagram-ready. The tall windows are more aesthetically pleasing on the inside, where the white walls, white furniture, and white bedding glow at sunrise. There wasn’t anything kitschy about it, either. (Each room goes for $125 a night.) My big takeaway: It’s weirdly cozy to fall asleep in a place that wasn’t intended for sleeping-to lie where grain used to lie. I stayed in the suite, which includes a sitting area as well as a bedroom. But, inside, it’s like HGTV’s Joanna Gaines cast her spell.” What the TikTok video doesn’t show are the comfortable yet refined interiors. In my article, I wrote, “Corrugated metal on the outside. As part of my research (which did include Carlos Creek Winery), I trekked out to Gathered Oaks in February, shortly after the grain bins opened. Last year, Alexandria won Minnesota Monthly’s “Best MN Town” contest. When I reached out to Gathered Oaks for comment, it wasn’t our first correspondence. Sam has responded with surprise (“I was expecting 2 likes □“) and salesmanship (“It’s about 2 minutes away from Carlos Creek Winery!”). “WAIT…I have lived here my entire life and am just hearing about this,” declares another, to a chorus of “same!” “y’all been to a different Alexandria MN than me? □” one user quips. Since May, he’s been posting videos of upscale Minnesota homes that have garnered between 2,000 and 4,000 views.Īmong the grain-bin video’s 700 or so comments, Minnesotans have expressed alarm that something so cool is so close. Sam’s video has notched more than 500,000 views and over 75,000 likes. That uniqueness appears to be the reason they went viral. ![]() Like Gathered Oaks’ renovated-farmhouse suite and converted-barn venue (just yards away), the metal bins have been charmingly reimagined: Lofted decks and a cartoonish abundance of windows almost create the impression of an industrial-modern elf village. The squat silos popped up on the 11-acre property last year courtesy of Gathered Oaks, a wedding- and event-hosting company. Clustered together, three old grain bins no longer hold grain and instead contain eight hotel-style rooms. That Airbnb is actually multiple Airbnbs. Airbnb in Alexandria, MN! #fall #minnesota #mn #mncheck #airbnb #alexandria #realtor #minnesotacheck #leaves #autumn #views #home #fyp #fypシ ♬ NYC – J. The realtor, Sam ( was using the youth-driven app of the moment, TikTok-better known for flash-in-the-pan dance crazes, where things are most likely to go viral these days. "It is nice to be a little different than everyone else," Brian said.A local realtor stood outside the cornfield-adjacent property, took slow panning shots, and posted the video on social media last week. They have a vision of a whole neighborhood of grain bin houses, or maybe a motel made up of several smaller bins grouped together. They're thinking about opening their unique home as a vacation rental and about building more grain bin projects or consulting for others wanting to build one. The Bachmans are happy to be the shape of something new. So if you have the same cell service as us, you get a signal, if not, you get no signal inside the house," Brian said. It picks up the signal then broadcasts it through the house. ![]() So we do have Wi-Fi inside the house, and we do have a booster for the cell signal, which is a little antenna mounted on a window. "So when you walk through door with your cellphone, it's not gonna work anymore. They can't get any cell phone signals through the steel. There is one drawback with a metal building. "We had 50, 60 miles an hour winds, and you really didn't even know it was blowing inside," he said. The kitchen in Cynthia and Brian Bachman's grain bin house near Brainerd, Minn.
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