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Caroline and Mike Parrish built an underground Airbnb that features a 150-year-old door from Belgium.
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90% of the property — called “Dragon’s Knoll” — is built into the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Their company, Treehouses of Serenity, features several unique Airbnb properties.
Mike and Caroline Parrish founded a vacation treehouse community in Asheville, North Carolina.
Along the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina sits Treehouses of Serenity, a community of unique homes built by Mike, 65, and Caroline, 46, Parrish. The couple has seven rental properties so far, including two underground homes: Alchemy – which has a 12-foot slide – and Dragon’s Knoll.
Caroline told Insider that Mike’s lifelong love of fantasy inspired Dragon’s Knoll design and aesthetic.
“One of his dreams was to have an underground house. I’m like, ‘Have lost your mind?'” she said. “But he obviously talked me into it, and I’m glad he did.”
90% of Dragon’s Knoll is built into the ground, meaning guests can experience the area’s natural beauty from the comfort of a fully-furnished home.
The Parrishes began building Dragon’s Knoll in June 2019 before opening it up for business in April 2020.
The Parrishes welcomed guests into Dragon’s Knoll in April 2020 but shut down for six weeks as the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic caused many industries to falter – like traditional hotels – Caroline said their business thrived after reopening in May 2020.
“Our situation is much different than that of a hotel,” Caroline said. “All of our properties are on the same piece of land, but you are separated. So families could come and get outside of the four walls of their house, but they could still quarantine with their family.”
Caroline said it took around eight months to build Dragon’s Knoll, costing between $275,000 and $300,000.
As of Wednesday, the property is available to rent on Airbnb for $364 a night.
According to Caroline, building an underground home is like building a basement.
Caroline explained to Insider that they began by digging a large hole in the mountainside.
“We dug out a hole from the side of the mountain, poured a concrete slab, and then built block walls, just like you would a basement,” she said. Caroline said they then added a metal layer atop the roof before pouring concrete to seal the structure.
“Once all of that was dried, cured, and waterproofed, we just took the dirt and covered it back up,” Caroline said.
They built Dragon’s Knoll around the mountain’s rocky terrain, which caused some problems along the way.
Caroline told Insider they tweaked the home’s design plan four to five times because of the mountainside’s landscape.
“We started digging where we wanted the house to be, and ran into a huge piece of granite,” Caroline said. “The only way to move that huge rock would be to blast it out, and of course, we didn’t want to do that.”
Instead, the couple decided to work with the land – not against it. They scrapped plans for an entrance foyer, moved the bathroom to the old foyer space, and enlarged the living room.
“Once we figured out that we weren’t going past this rock, then we had to look at the house design and change it a little bit because we weren’t going any further,” she said.
The Parrishes found the eye-catching front door at an antique shop in North Carolina for around $1,200.
The Parrishes originally bought a sliding glass door for the main entrance but changed plans…