This ‘Airbnb on steroids’ just opened in an 1896 house in Boise’s North End
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- 1896 Boise house converted into Assemble Boise boutique retreat, opened Feb.
- Owner spent ~$1.5M renovating, soundproofing and creating 11 themed rooms.
- Whole-house rental starts at $3,000 for two nights; includes concierge and vendor network.
A house in Boise’s North End neighborhood that was notorious for its backyard beer garden has been transformed into a retreat center and boutique hotel.
The home, built in 1896, used to be called the Franklin House, a bed-and-breakfast with an outdoor tavern that was beloved by some neighbors and bemoaned by others, in large part because it operated on a property zoned for residential use.
The former owners, Jennifer Bury and Gavin O’Neal, decided to sell the house on the corner of 15th and Franklin streets in early 2024.
“We had so many plans for the Franklin House,” the pair said then on Instagram, “but we didn’t have the resources to take it to the next level. We decided to sell to someone who had a similar sense of community and entrepreneurial spirit and the resources to see it through.”
Dan Berger, an entrepreneur who moved to Boise six years ago after selling his event-planning software company Social Tables, bought the house with a dream of turning it into boutique hospitality destination.
“I’ve always believed that the biggest things happen in the smallest rooms, and over the course of my entrepreneurial journey, some of the best moments were in those team retreats and executive off-sites where a group comes together and kind of visions out the year or goes over the previous year,” Berger told the Idaho Statesman.
But his new retreat center and boutique hotel, called Assemble Boise, is not limited to corporate guests. The house at 1502 W. Franklin St. opened to visitors in early February, and it already has a variety of bookings on the calendar.
In the coming months, the 11-room home will become a destination for graduation gatherings, wellness retreats, girls weekend and a family reunion.
Berger, who used to live just down the street from the home, believes the location is perfectly poised to show off the best of Boise. The 3,800-square-foot house is five minutes from nature, 10 minutes from downtown, 15 minutes from the Boise Airport and 30 minutes from Bogus Basin, according to Assemble Boise’s website.
“One of the reasons I did it is that I love sharing what Idaho has to offer,” Berger said by phone. “I think it’s a really special place that doesn’t get enough attention.”
He spent the last couple of years renovating the house to fits its new purpose. While they were excavating, he said they found old horseshoes, whiskey bottles, a couple of petrified cats, hand-drawn wallpaper, layers upon layers of tiles, and shower pans stacked atop each other.
“It was quite a project in terms of unearthing the space and bringing it to life,” he said.
The renovation cost about $1.5 million, Berger said. He also took the costly step of soundproofing the walls for privacy. And he brought in a local designer who created a motif for each room.
The home’s 11 bedrooms, which all adjoin bathrooms, are now each named after a physicist, with the vibes to match, he said. The Edison room, for example, is all green with unique wallpaper that matches Thomas Edison’s era. There’s also an Oppenheimer room, a Galileo room and an Einstein room.
The house also has a couple of roomy meeting spaces. One of them, which is connected to an open kitchen, can be used as a board room or a dining room, he said. A second meeting space has whiteboard walls with the idea that teams can move around and work on planning or executing whatever vision they may have. Both rooms have audio-visual components, Berger said.
The backyard, which some Boiseans got to know while it was the Franklin House, has a large kitchen and seating area. It also has a gym, cold plunge, hot tub and plenty of space to unwind, he said.
“Guests can expect a level of intimacy balanced with privacy,” Berger said. “I like to call it an Airbnb on steroids.”
You rent the whole house, not just a room or two. It costs $3,000 for two nights or $4,000 for three. Unlike Airbnb, the price includes cleaning. Assemble Boise also has a white-glove concierge service that Berger says will take the friction out of any plans guests want to make while they stay in Boise.
He said the house is connected with about 35 local vendors that can provide experiences from private chefs to mountain biking in the Foothills, floating the Boise River, white water rafting, going to Bogus Basin and more.
“That’s so people can really experience Boise through our lens,” he said.
