A New Short-Stay Option Downtown

Aberdeen Magazine’s publisher creates a unique hotel-like apartment with lots of color and custombuilt furniture.

By Troy McQuillen | July/August 2025

I CERTAINLY DON’T TAKE EDITORIAL LIBERTIES AS THE publisher of Aberdeen Magazine. However, I’m going to do just that for this article. It’s not easy finding homes to feature in our Open House section, so I’m featuring this special project of mine we just finished up.

In 2002 I purchased the building where our offices are now at 423 South Main Street (Fifth and Main). This was the height of my downtown revitalization phase and I had plans to lead historic preservation by example. I did extensive work to the outside of the building and built office space for our businesses on the main floor. The building has eight apartments on the second floor that were rebuilt in early 1990s; except for one. There is a 350 square foot efficiency apartment that had never been updated since the building was built in 1917. I was only getting $275 for rent, the cast iron bathtub was about to rust through, and the plumbing occasionally leaked on our front desk person at McQuillen Creative down below. The leaks even fried our network once.

The efficiency apartment clearly needed an overhaul. But when I did the math to calculate anticipated rent to recoup construction costs for a tiny one-room apartment, I quickly realized that no one in their right mind would ever rent it. And I knew if I took on the remodel myself, to save a buck, it would never get done.

So instead of expecting the needed rent of $700- $1,000 per month, I decided to make the apartment a short-stay, hotel-like unit to post on Airbnb, which could net $100-$200 per night. That justified hiring contractors to do all the work. I contacted Jill Fonder at Interior Design Concepts to come up with a floorplan and design ideas, then engaged Mike Lillis to get all the building work done. Of course this meant we had to furnish the apartment and supply it with all sorts of hotel-like essentials. Despite my best efforts to not let the project drag on, it still took about two years. I had no budget and no goal, so the project just ebbed and flowed. But now it’s done, and I wanted to share the final results.

This unit will be available on Airbnb starting in July…