Jon Staff, co-founder of Getaway, a company that builds and rents out tiny houses in the great outdoors, grew up in a small northern Minnesota town where almost everyone was surrounded by nature. So when Staff uprooted himself and moved to Brooklyn, it wasn’t long before he found himself yearning for escape.
Staff’s dream was to create a place where people could abandon technology and cast aside the distractions and worries of everyday life. Pete Davis, a Falls Church native and co-founder of Getaway, shared the same vision. Together, the pair began creating tiny Getaway houses near major cities, allowing visitors to seek refuge focused on balance, simplicity, ritual, leisure and quiet.
Their first home was up and running in Boston by October 2016, followed by a second home in New York. By early 2018, Getaway plans on launching another 20 cabins.
Seeing that the Metro-D.C. area is full of working professionals constantly on the move and on their devices, Staff and Davis agreed that it would be the perfect place for their third location. The D.C. tiny house, which sits on an 80-acre plot in the Shenandoah Valley, will be available in late October.
Pricing for the D.C. house starts at $125 per night if you are booking before Oct. 9, and after that, prices climb to $150.
“We need a counterbalance in the world,” Staff says. “Everyone is moving into the city, but we [still] need to be in tune with nature and having nothing around. If you’re busy the whole time, you’ll come back home stressed. But at Getaway you’re in a house in the woods, just enjoying nature.”
Each Getaway home is a furnished cabin with a fully stocked kitchen, bathroom, fire pit and, of course, a phone lock box.
“You lock your phone up as soon as you get to the house. Experience boredom, and sit by the campfire at night,” Staff says. “We suggest things for our guests to do at each location as well.”
