Pocatello contractor builds Idaho Flowerpot Airbnb for prize

The Idaho Flowerpot Airbnb will tentatively take reservations starting in early September.

No construction project is too eccentric for Riley MacButch of Pocatello.

His carpentry accomplishments recently blossomed with the completion of an Airbnb shaped like a giant flowerpot near Burley.

“I couldn’t believe it when I got the call,” said MacButch, who has built homes and decks and refurbished structures since launching his contracting business in 2001. “I told them to send me the drawings.”

He had experience with round structures, having built several vacation rentals shaped like grain bins near Lava Hot Springs.

He analyzed the plans for the 24-foot-tall rental with a 20-foot circular base and agreed to tackle the pleasantly peculiar project.

“I realized it’s more like a giant wood sculpture than anything else,” he said. “The fact that people get to live in it is a bonus.”

Riley MacButch, a Pocatello carpenter and building contractor, reviews construction drawings with Whitney Hansen, who designed the Idaho Flowerpot Airbnb. Hansen and her mother won $100,000 from Airbnb’s OMG! Fund to build the rental near Burley.

It was challenging to build because it is circular as well as slanted.

“The exterior walls tilt outward to 100 degrees in a circle, which equates to the circumference of the roof overhanging the circumference of the base by almost 4 feet,” he said. “My laser ‘level’ was crucial to the construction; a standard carpenter’s level was useless on a project like this.”

For the exterior walls, he used quarter-inch plywood that was flexible enough to form a curve.

After toiling for about three weeks, MacButch finished the flowerpot last week. The first floor of the 430-square-foot interior will have a bathroom and living room. A spiral staircase leads to the second-floor bedroom, while the flat roof will be a lounging area.

“Riley was a lifesaver for us,” said Whitney Hansen, who teamed up with her mother, Krista Hansen, to win $100,000 to build the rental.

Airbnb’s OMG! Fund awarded $100,000 each to 100 winning applicants who proposed ideas for wacky rentals worldwide. More than 10,000 plans were submitted.

Whitney, a financial coach in Boise, read about the contest and told her mom about it. They brainstormed while taking a walk and talked about their love for flowers.

“I own land that my dad had once farmed, so it was an ideal location,” said Krista, a Realtor and skin care adviser in Boise. “We thought a flowerpot Airbnb was weird enough to win. The exterior will be a terra-cotta-colored stucco, so it will look like a clay pot.”

Whitney invested about 40 hours into the application. She described their construction plans, planning and zoning approval, financial projections and location. Its Instagram account will be the Idaho Flowerpot.

Scheduled to be turnkey Aug. 1, the rental will tentatively be ready for reservations by early September.

“We applied last June and were so excited when we found out we’d won in October,” Whitney said.

She began searching for a builder.

“The local contractors were busy or not interested in doing a round structure,” she said. “I googled round vacation rentals and found the grain bins in Lava. I called the owner and asked who his contractor was. Riley has been fabulous.”

The Idaho Flowerpot will be surrounded by a 2-acre field of you-pick flowers. A fire pit and deck will be built near the back door.

Krista plans to plant flowers that will bloom throughout the growing season, including lavender, zinnia, cosmos and sunflowers. For autumn, people can pick pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn.

MacButch said he enjoys building unconventional woodworking and construction projects that challenge him.

Besides the Idaho Flowerpot and grain bin rentals near Lava, he and his kids built Snoopy’s doghouse and entered it in Pebble Creek Ski Area’s Dummy Jump in March.

“It was our first time to enter, and we placed second,” he said. “Just about whatever you can dream up in wood, I can build. This might sound crazy, but I don’t ever see myself retiring. I enjoy going to work every day and seeing the results of building materials shaped into a finished product — whatever it is.”

At the times of Airbnb exuberance, the decent middle class jobs which, as our President Joe Biden put it, “give you dignity” are long gone. The Ubers, the Door Dashs, and other Gig economy monsters had left us with low wages, or no wages at all as “independent contractor” and no health coverage benefits. I am sick-and-tired of seeing all these exotic fancy RENTAL promotions with prices shooting over the roof. I’m sick-and-tired of the overpriced secondary real estate market, driven up to the skies by the Wall Street equity hedge funds “wealth extraction” crusade. I am sick-and-tired of the high end “luxury custom” projects built for the well-off investors and “highly compensated” top level directors and CEOs, as well as one-in-a-kind multi million dollar houses extravaganza for the employers and the landlords class, which I am not in the position to afford. Please stop all this fantasy noise nonsense! Because it distracts us from talking about pressing reality, like a deepening affordable housing crises we are facing, which is getting worse by the day. The hard working people, employed full time at multiple jobs, are living in the shabby slums of trailer parks, and many are left to dwelling in their clunkers if they still have one.

It is time for the community to figure out a way to start building modern basic affordable OWNER OCCUPIED condos/coops/small houses for the hard working Idahoans. The place we can actually be able to purchase, live in, enjoy, and call home.

At the exuberance times of Airbnbs, Ubers, Door Dashs, and other Gig economy monsters with it’s low wages and no health coverage benefits, I am Sick and Tired of seeing all these exotic fancy RENTAL promotions with prices shooting over the roof. Please stop all this nonsense noise! It distracts us from talking about deepening affordable housing crises we are facing, and it is getting worse by the day. People are living in the shabby slums of trailer parks, and many are left to dwelling in their clunkers if they still have one.

It is time to start building basic affordable OWNER OCCUPIED modern condos/coops/small houses for the hard working Idahoans. The place we can actually be able to purchase, live in, enjoy, and call home.

At the exuberance times of Airbnbs, Ubers, Door Dashs, and other Gig economy monsters with it’s low wages and no health coverage benefits, I am Sick and Tired of seeing all these exotic fancy RENTAL promotions with prices shooting over the roof. Please stop all this nonsense noise! It distracts us from talking about deepening affordable housing crises we are facing, and it is getting worse by the day. People are living in the shabby slums of trailer parks, and many are left to dwelling in their clunkers if they still have one.

It is time to start building basic affordable OWNER OCCUPIED modern condos/coops/small houses for the hard working Idahoans. The place we can actually be able to purchase, live in, and call home.

At the exuberance times of Airbnbs, Ubers, Door Dashs, and other Gig economy monsters with it’s low wages and no health coverage benefits, I am Sick and Tired of seeing all these exotic fancy RENTAL promotions with prices shooting over the roof. Please stop all this nonsense noise! It distracts us from talking about deepening affordable housing crises we are facing, and it is getting worse by day. People are living in the shabby slums of trailer parks, and many are left to dwelling in their clunkers if they still have one.

It is time to start building basic affordable OWNER OCCUPIED condos/coops/small houses for the hard working Idahoans. The place we can actually be able to purchase, live in, and call home.

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