On
the way to see Ephrata Cloister (this will be a later post) we
stopped to see the Haines Shoe House, just outside of York.
Unfortunately it was closed for the season so we just got a
picture from the outside.
The
following is a description from Wikipedia.
The Haines
Shoe House is
a shoe-shaped
house in Hallam,
Pennsylvania,
along the Lincoln
Highway.
Modeled after a work boot, the house was built by shoe
salesman Mahlon
Haines in 1948 as a form of advertisement. Among his
various companies, he owned a company that likes to claim that they
raised boots "hoof-to-hoof" because the company did the
boot making process starting with raising the cattle. The house,
which is 25 feet (7.6 m) tall and contains five stories,
was once rented out to couples, and is now open for public tours. It
is located on Shoe House Road, next to a shoe-shaped doghouse.
Haines had the building built by handing a work boot to
an architect saying,
"Build me a house like this. He lived in the shoe house for
a short while but ended up moving into a house across the street. The
renters were served by a maid and butler and then received free pairs
of shoes when they left. A Shoe House vacation contest was held which
was won in 1950 and had all expenses paid by Mahlon Haines.
The living room is located in the toe, the kitchen is located
in he heel, two bedrooms are located in the ankle, and an ice
cream shop is located in the instep.
When Mahlon decided to sell the house, it started going to ruin until
it was bought by his granddaughter Annie Haines Keller in 1987. The
current owners are Jeff and Melanie Schmuck who bought the house in
2015. The house received a small renovation and new paint in
2007. There is also a stained
glass panel that shows Mahlon holding a pair of shoes with a
message below it that reads, "Haines the Shoe Wizard". During
the 2004 opening after the Farabaughs bought the property, boy
scouts ran Easter
egg hunts there.
Mahlon's family told stories about their relative and an author sold
copies of his book The
Life and Times of Mahlon Haines.
The
Shoe House was visited in the eighth
season of the reality television series The
Amazing Race and
was featured on HGTV's What's
With That House?.
The Farabaughs were happy about the publicity though not permitted to
talk about the house's appearance on The
Amazing Race until
two years later.
