In August 2020, the folks at Airbnb got the wild hair to rent out the last remaining Blockbuster video store. The store in Bend, Oregon, is a relic of a bygone era that nostalgia-hungry travelers were eager to experience. Airbnb recreated a quintessential 90s bedroom at the store, where the store manager, Sandi Harding, hosted guests for a slumber party movie marathon.
Unbeknownst to Airbnb at the time, this concept was just the beginning of what would become the company’s newest category and most impressive endeavor yet: Icons.
After the success of the Blockbuster experience, Airbnb pushed this idea of world-building even further by making the Home Alone House bookable on the site and bringing the Barbie Malibu DreamHouse to life last summer. They’ve gone all-in on bringing imagined worlds into reality, launching the first 11 new Icons experiences this week.
“Airbnb’s DNA has always been about inviting people into other people’s worlds,” Global Head of Marketing for Airbnb, Hiroki Asai, told me. “In the beginning, it was sharing homes, and then it became submarines and tugboats and castles, and you really came to Airbnb because you had this world opened up to you. So it was natural for the Barbie house and the Home Alone house to be listed, and I think what struck a chord is people got to participate in these imaginary worlds. That was the impetus for all of this.”
At a celebratory affair in sunny Los Angeles on May 1, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky proudly presented each of the 11 Icons, which he said have been a decade in the making. And you can see why. Each concept is impressive enough, but the execution to bring the experiences to life reaches a new level of audaciousness. “Magic is not limited to our imagination,” Chesky said triumphantly to an awe-inspired crowd as he walked us through each Icon. “Icons take you inside worlds that only existed in your imagination until now.”
The Up! House
At the Icons launch event, it was clear that the Up! house was the room’s favorite—and not just because the house itself was on-site for us to tour. This recreation is an exact replica of the house from the movie, down to the most minuscule detail. “We even had to create our own rust!” Chesky said of the antiquing effect his team created for a zeppelin toy on the mantle.
“We built the house down to its specific Pantone colors and weathering of the shingles to make sure it looks exactly like what was in that film,” said Asai. “The whole house, down to the pill bottles inside and the photos in the hallway and the little chair that Carl rides up the stairs, it’s all reproduced exactly the same. The fireplace even has the ropes coming out of it that you can strum like a guitar, and it makes noise.” And what’s most impressive? This 40,000-pound structure, attached to 8,000 balloons, was built to float 50 feet above the ground in New Mexico. “If we’re going to create a world for Disney fans and Up! fans to come experience, we’re going to make that world as magical as possible,” said Asai.
The Musée d’Orsay
When I asked Asai if he had a favorite of these 11 Icons, he told me without hesitation that it was what the Airbnb team had created at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
This legendary art museum along the River Seine is one of the most historic buildings—a former train station—known for its two massive clocks. Airbnb worked with Mathieu Lehanneur, the designer of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games torch and cauldron, to create a luxurious bedroom in the clock room.
Guests will spend a night at the museum, with private access to the Musée d’Orsay collection, including four of Van Gogh’s most famous works. The stay will also coincide with the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony, to be held along the River Seine just below the clock tower terrace.
The X-Mansion
Airbnb recreated the X-Mansion to look and feel like you’re stepping into a cartoon. They achieved this by working with artists to painstakingly paint black outlines along the furniture and objects in the house to create a 2D-animated effect. According to Chesky, each prop took over an hour to paint. There are well over 100 objects in the house.
The Ferrari Museum
At the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, Italy, Airbnb built a sleeping experience for those with a need for speed. The bed is crafted from the same leather as Ferrari seats and is surrounded by—you guessed it—Ferraris.
Prince’s Purple Rain House
Until now, the house Prince purchased in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the film Purple Rain has never been available to the public. Hosts Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman of Prince’s band The Revolution are opening the home’s doors for guests to spend the night in Prince’s restored bedroom from the movie and listen to unreleased Prince tracks.
Game with Khaby Lame
A handful of the Icons are less about the physical spaces and more about the incredible people with whom guests will interact. TikTok creator and gamer Khaby Lame is one such host who will spend the night with guests gaming and eating pizza at his home in Milan.
On Tour with Feid
Reggaeton sensation Feid is bringing guests along for the ride on his FERXXOCALIPSIS World Tour for an entire week. Guests will join the crew for rehearsals, ride along on the eye-catching tour bus that’s decked out with fuzzy green interiors, and get backstage access for every show.
Inside Out 2 Headquarters
To build excitement for the upcoming release of Pixar’s Inside Out 2, Airbnb has brought the famous headquarters of Riley’s emotions to life. Guests can sleep in what they’re calling a “dreamatorium.”
The Kapoor Family Home with Bollywood Star Janhvi Kapoor
Asai told me that the locales of the Icons were imperative, considering that cultural luminaries reside around the globe. “When you look at the icons of music and film and culture and art, they naturally sprout up from all over the globe and across all categories.” Janhvi Kapoor represents one of these cultures as a member of one of Bollywood’s most famous families. She is opening the Kapoor family home in Chennai, India, for the first time and will share her beauty secrets and favorite Southern Indian dishes.
“”From a business perspective, these icons allow us to talk to new audiences and stay relevant,” elaborated Asai. “In the case of someone like Jhanvi Kapoor or Feid, they allow us to talk to not only different generations of our guests but also totally different geographies.”
A Living Room Session with Doja Cat
This Icons experience is about getting intimate access to one of the music’s biggest names. Doja Cat will host a private living session for guests with songs from her latest album.
A Private Comedy Show with Kevin Hart
Superstar stand-up comic Kevin Hart typically performs for sell-out stadium crowds, but this Icons experience offers the opposite. Guests will have a private tequila tasting and comedy show with Hart at the Coramino Live Lounge, with the promise of some of his comedic friends stopping by for a set.
“What Airbnb stands for is human connection, and for us, that’s connection in the real world,” Asai said about the importance of creating physical spaces. “We don’t want to be a platform where people connect behind screens or in any other way except in real life. That’s what travel and sharing, and accommodation are all about: connecting in the real world. So, these experiences are about creating something in the real world, not virtual. But to do that, you have to build something amazing.”
When asked about the most rewarding part of working on a project of this magnitude, Asai told me it was seeing a decade of work from hundreds of people’s efforts finally come to fruition. “When you work on something this long with this many teams that are all working their hardest to do the right thing and the best quality thing that they can, it’s really rewarding to see it all come together,” he said. “Then when you show it to people that have never seen it before, and to be able to appreciate it for the first time through the eyes of someone new to it, it’s unbelievably rewarding.”
