We are privileged to live in the Niagara Region and what better inspiration to start an Airbnb than the Niagara wine scene! We also took our cues from the event production and functional art fields to turn our home into a vacation rental. While we did not set out to be different, our love of experiencing the best life has to offer resulted in a bespoke Airbnb!
| Niagara Wine Industry |
| Niagara Escarpment: Local’s Guide to the Best Hikes and Wineries |
| One Of A Kind Design – The Art House Element |
| Live Event Production Also Helped Shape our Airbnb |
Niagara Wine Industry
The Niagara Wine industry is Canada’s largest and most concentrated wine region, according to Destination Ontario. Living in Southern Ontario means that we have watched the industry grow from a small entity to a burgeoning cultural scene featuring new wineries opening almost yearly. We have also witnessed the launch of multiple wine festivals, international recognition and awards for our wines and the emergence of a world-class gastronomic scene.
Niagara Wine Tourism
The Niagara wine industry positively impacts the Niagara Region and fuels economic growth. It is reported that the wine sector in Ontario was responsible for just over $1 billion of Canada’s gross domestic product in 2019, with Niagara responsible for 90% of grape production in the province of Ontario.
With over fifty wineries in the Niagara Region as of 2023, wine touring has also become a major part of our landscape. With Niagara Falls and the Shaw Festival Theatre among the top attractions in addition to wineries, the Region is a perfect place for a weekend getaway. While Niagara is well-known for these major tourism attractions, the area is packed with other activities from golf, to hiking to culinary experiences, botanical gardens and more.
And living in Niagara means quick access to all of these incredible amenities!
Imagine heading out the door mid-afternoon on a weekday to explore the latest reds from a winery that is only fifteen minutes up the road. Then the following week you pick another winery to try a few different selections, learning with each visit and developing favourites to showcase to family and friends.
Niagara Escarpment: Local’s Guide to the Best Hikes and Wineries
One of Niagara’s most pronounced geographic features is the Niagara Escarpment. It is a giant cliff that cuts through Niagara from east to west and continues to the north in Tobermory. This unique geographic feature makes for unique growing conditions for our wineries that are situated along the Escarpment. It is also known for its stunning and challenging hikes! Since we love hiking and wine tasting, we wrote this ultimate reference for the best hikes and winery pairings in Niagara.
The Niagara Escarpment is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve space. This outcropping of limestone received the designation in 1990. Think of the Niagara Escarpment as a giant cliff that starts in New York State and, runs along the south shore of Lake Ontario before it heads north into Michigan, ending in Wisconsin.
Niagara Wine Country Art House
With our love of Niagara wine, we aptly named our Airbnb “Niagara Wine Country Art House.” Our intention is to share our love of Niagara wines, and the many attractions the Region has to offer with others.
One of our favourite go-to wineries is Megalomaniac in the Benchlands of Niagara. We love the patio with views of Toronto on a clear day. Their brand is fun (REALLY fun!) and both their whites and reds are easy-drinking.
One Of A Kind Design – The Art House Element
Our Niagara wine country Airbnb is definitely a one-of-a-kind design. This was not a specific design strategy to gain a competitive edge with our vacation rental. In fact, our city introduced short-term rental licensing and one of the key parameters is that owners have to live in their house for part of the year and rent only when they’re on vacation. So what guests get to experience is our creative interiors that we live in, day in and day out.
And it is no coincidence that our interiors are one of a kind. In the spring of 2023, many of the functional art pieces found in our Airbnb were exhibited at the prestigious One Of A Kind Show in Toronto.
Our house interiors are just as bold, unique and, funky as some of the functional art pieces! This is why we added the “Art House” description onto the title of our Airbnb (i.e. Niagara Wine Country “Art House”).
For those that are interested in learning more about what is behind the one-of-a-kind functional art pieces, you can read the backstories on the Wilder Interiors website.
What’s up with all the references to “Wilder” – “Di Wilder Adventures” (this blog) and “Wilder Interiors?”
Well…Have you ever seen the movie “Romancing the Stone” with Michael Douglas & Kathleen Turner circa 1980s?
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Kathleen’s character, “Joan Wilder” forever lives in my psyche as the ultimate inadvertent adventurer.
And aren’t we all “inadvertent” adventurers?
Doesn’t adventure just “find us?”
It does me!
(Hence this blog)
And who can forget the wild mudslide scene that Ms. Wilder found herself in?
Gosh, I feel that I’m forever in search of the mountain that lent itself to a “fun” mudslide! (And I am actually close to it as I overwinter in Mexico as that is where that scene was shot!).
And this is how I forever adopted the “Wilder” reference.”
Live Event Production Also Helped Shape our Airbnb
Believe it or not, our careers in live event production also helped shape our Airbnb. Similar to what makes interiors so fabulous, a great event focuses on creating little details for attendees. It is very much about creating amazing experiences and often, going above and beyond by programming in the unexpected.
Here’s an illustration of this concept in both event production and vacation rental roll-out:
Creating a fabulous Marathon event
For many years, we produced a major international marathon with distances including a 5k, 10k, half marathon and, full 42.2 km event. Our event was in late October in Southern Ontario and that can mean several things – cold, sometimes rainy and, dark when guests begin to arrive in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. Not exactly an environment that is welcoming. Here is how we designed our event to turn these conditions around and support our guests:
- A large heated tent for guests to hang out in before the races start
- And that large tent is outfitted with “window walls” because, after all our event takes place at the brink of Niagara Falls so we want to have that “WOW” factor ALL the time
- Plenty of good lighting as racers picked up their bibs and our volunteers processed registrations in the wee hours of the morning when it is still pitch dark
- A stage with a fabulous DJ to keep the spirits up and get racers pumped before the start!
Creating a fabulous Airbnb
We have been staying in Airbnbs as we travel throughout North America and Mexico. We appreciate the lengths some owners go to to deliver a great experience. Based on our travels and our love for going the extra mile for our guests, here are elements we thought of to make our own Airbnb rock:
- Great communication to make the check-in/out process seamless. We hired a fabulous management company to oversee this aspect of our vacation rental. Our own experience with Key Term Rentals in setting up our Airbnb has been excellent so we trust them to deliver an exceptional experience for our guests
- We loved staging our Airbnb and including little details like an extra comforter on the bed, blankets on the sofas for cozying up on cool nights, a large spice drawer and, all the cooking amenities one could imagine for those who enjoy cooking as a few examples. What is great is that Key Term Rentals has the same attention to detail in setting up our house for each new guest.
- Chocolates! Who doesn’t love a sweet little welcome gift of luxurious Godiva chocolate
- Extra large bath towels for guests to wrap themselves in after a good soak in our hot tub
- Since our Airbnb celebrates “the good life,” we have a “Happy Hour” bar setup in our converted porch room at the front of the house (this is in addition to our converted piano bar). It’s such a fabulous place to hang out in and has a fabulous vibe at night AND, it features in-floor heating to warm the tootsies under that cool-looking flagstone.
One last cool detail – the front door. We had been working on building our own sculpted front door for a few years. This is one project we went to town on to finish in time for our vacation rental.
These are all the elements that helped us put together our very first Airbnb. This became a passion project and to say we are obsessed with creating top-notch experiences in the vacation rental realm may be an understatement.
Of course, having the inspiration of the Niagara wine scene is a great start!
I write this article from our winter home in San Miguel de Allende, just north of Mexico City. This City is packed with incredible interiors and architecture. I am here to delve deeper into creativity and gain even more inspiration to create dramatic interiors. I have a feeling that our Niagara Wine Country Art House is just the beginning of a new venture in vacation rentals!
