A married couple spent over $1 million to buy and renovate an abandoned Arizona lodge

Sarah, 36, and Rich, 37, weren’t planning to buy the 38-acre vacant canyon in the Arizona desert, but that didn’t stop them from jumping into the new venture first.

“It was a big risk…but we really believed in this place, we knew it had a lot of potential and we put everything into it,” Sarah told CNBC Make It.

In 2015, the couple quit their full-time job as web designers to start a hospitality business. Joshua Tree House. Now, the group’s properties include two that are available to guests to book in Joshua Tree, California, and Tucson, Arizona. The Combs also own a property in Marfa, Texas that they plan to eventually open to guests.

“We were really dying to get our hands dirty again and were looking for a creative getaway from San Francisco at the time,” Rich said.

In 2018, Rich was browsing listings online when he came across what looked like an empty canyon in Tucson, Arizona.

The property was an abandoned inn, set on 38 acres of land and had been empty for a decade. The property had a 7,500-square-foot main building and two additional homes.

The three buildings combined have an area of ​​over 10,000 square feet.

The owner accepted an offer of $615,000 with a three-month warranty and asked Combs to include a signed copy of their “At Home in Joshua Tree” design and lifestyle book as part of the deal.

The couple could not obtain a conventional mortgage: banks generally would not grant a loan on existing property that had been destroyed and no longer usable.

They eventually found a bank to give them a hard loan and worked to finish the renovation with the goal of opening the lodge within 12 months. It was enough time for them to refinance the original loan into a small business loan.

Rich says the couple spent more than $500,000 on renovations alone, and that money came from maxing out credit cards and borrowing from family and friends. The couple also received free products from various social media partnerships.

The Combs didn’t specify, but said they ended up with “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of products” and “they wouldn’t have been able to do this project without it.”

Sarah added: “We love presenting this as a place where people have time to really think about what they love, what they want to do with their lives, what they really enjoy, and have a quiet moment to think about everything.”

When it came time to design the lodge, the couple wanted to incorporate as much of the surrounding nature as possible and maintain a connection between the two spaces such as using furniture and art from the local community throughout.

The Combs opened The Joshua Tree House: The Posada in September 2019. Rooms range from $200 to $600 per night. Guests can book the entire 7-bedroom inn starting at $2,200 per night.

A stay on the property includes access to a hot spring-style hot tub, grove of olive trees, canyon pool, walking trail and fire pit.

Looking into the future, the couple’s ultimate goal is for the lodge to be completely self-sufficient And use the power grid as a backup. That means adding solar panels and rainwater harvesting.

The couple plans to continue expanding The Joshua Tree House: “Eventually, we’d like to have a few more lodges around the Southwest,” Rich says.

“But for now, we’re working on our personal home and our personal lives and enjoying everything we experience every day,” Sarah added.

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