Employee Housing for All Ways Adventure Guides

Building a Home: The Story of Our Employee Housing

This has been a long time coming.

Somewhere around 2021 or 2022, Nathan and I started tossing around an idea that seemed both obvious and completely impractical: what if we built housing for our employees?

Not a guide shack. Not a bunkhouse. Not a place where you could technically put a bed and call it housing.

Actual housing.

A private, dignified place to live.

At the time, our commercially zoned property only allowed for two dwellings, but we knew we wanted more units. Since there was already a house on site, this left only one unit to build, which would help one person, but didn't feel like an opportunity to grow our business in a major way. We hung up on this for years. The idea sat somewhere between maybe we can find a loophole and there is absolutely no way this is going to happen.

Then, sometime around 2023, the code changed. Our zoning stayed the same, but multifamily housing units became an allowed use.

Suddenly, maybe someday became well… I guess there's nothing stopping us now.

And what followed was one of the hardest projects we've ever taken on.

We knew what we didn't want to build

This project was personal for us because we have lived the problem.

Before moving to Kanab in 2020, we lived in Springdale. We spent the entire five years we were there in an RV.

My job came with housing, but it was a big group house. It worked, technically. But it wasn't comfortable for a couple, and Nathan was not exactly un-welcome, but he worked for a different company than me. Pets were a big sticking point, although this pre-dated Wren the Adventure Hound. And it certainly wasn't ideal for someone who wanted a little separation between their home life and their work life.

Nathan's job didn't provide housing at all.

And eventually, when we wanted a place of our own, the obvious solution seemed to be starting our own business just so we could make enough money to try to make rent in a tourist town filled with second homes and luxury nightly rentals.

When we made the move up to Kanab and started All Ways Adventure, we vowed to provide a different path for people who work in the outdoor industry. One that allowed for a year round, private home.

When we thought about who we wanted to house, we pictured the experienced, seasoned guide. Someone building a career. Someone who has decided that guiding isn't just a summer sabbatical before heading back to college, but something they're in for the long haul.

So we built accordingly.

Housing for people who actually live here

So we built a fourplex. Each of the private units is 550 square feet.

They're small, but they're real homes.

Every unit has its own private, fenced backyard, because pets are part of the family and because having somewhere to sit outside matters.

I fought hard to make sure every yard had a gate. It sounds like a tiny detail, but it wasn't to me. A gate means you can roll your mountain bike straight into your own backyard. It means you can lug a kayak through without climbing over a fence. It means your home functions like a home.

Each unit has a dishwasher and its own washer and dryer, because when guiding sends you into overtime for months at a time, the last thing you need is to spend your one day off at a laundromat or standing over a sink full of dishes.

The minisplits mean the apartments can get ice cold in the summer and toasty warm in the winter.

There are dedicated parking spaces, so nobody has to fight with their neighbors over who got home first.

We intentionally designed the building so that the bedrooms aren't on shared walls, because getting enough sleep matters when you need to be up for a 6:00 a.m. departure.

We chose durable vinyl flooring because we know what happens when dirt bike boots meet laminate.

And perhaps most importantly, there are four separate units.

Our guides can socialize. They can hang out. They can share meals, swap stories, and complain about the weather together.

But at the end of the day, everyone gets to close their own front door and have their own space.

That privacy matters.

Housing that works beyond the busy season

One of the things we wanted most was to make it possible for employees to keep their housing year-round.

Seasonal work creates a weird housing problem. You might have a job for nine months of the year, but rent doesn't magically disappear for the other three.

For our employees, reduced rent in the off-season makes it possible to keep their housing even if they decide to travel during the winter.

You shouldn't have to choose between having a stable home and having a seasonal career.

We wanted to build something that made both possible.

A little help from the community

The idea of "dignified" employee housing ended up resonating beyond our own little corner of the world.

In 2025, All Ways Adventure was selected as a recipient of the Kane County Economic Opportunity Small Business Grant, which helped fund the project.

That support meant a tremendous amount to us, especially because this project had a way of becoming more complicated — and more expensive — at nearly every turn.

The price tag got shockingly high.

There were building permits hurdles.

Funding hurdles.

Project management hurdles.

Construction hurdles.

And approximately one million tiny decisions that nobody tells you about when you decide, Hey, let's build a four tiny houses. There were days when it felt like the project would never actually be finished.

And yet, somehow, here we are.

It's finished. Mostly.

We are incredibly proud to say that the four units are complete, and each one has occupants.

Our current staff is all housed elsewhere, so we're filling the spaces with valued, long term community members for the time being.

Having lived in a booming tourist town ourselves, we know what happens when housing disappears.

Small apartments become short-term rentals. Mother-in-law suites become nightly rentals. Casitas become vacation accommodations. Spare bedrooms become income-producing spaces.

Before long, the people who actually work in the community have fewer and fewer places to live.

So we're proud to have built something different.

A place specifically designed for long-term residents and employees.

A place where someone can come home from a 12-hour day outside, take off their boots, do their laundry, let the dog into the backyard, turn the AC down to an unreasonable temperature, and close the door on the rest of the world.

That's what we mean by dignified housing.

We didn't do it alone

There is one part of this project that will probably stick with us longer than the building itself.

Our community showed up.

Dozens of friends and family members volunteered to help us get this thing across the finish line. They donated hundreds of hours of their time, maybe even thousands.

People helped with construction.

They helped move dirt.

They helped dig fence posts.

They helped dig plumbing.

(There was a lot of dirt stuff.)

They showed up when we were exhausted.

And, perhaps most importantly, they kept us fed.

We are humbled by the amount of support we've received.

So, to everyone who helped, cheered us on, answered our frantic questions, hauled something, fixed something, watched something, carried something, or showed up with food:

Thank you.

Seriously. Your support means more than you know.

This project wouldn't be what it is without you.

And now… we get our lives back

If we've been a little slow to respond to emails lately, or you've caught us being a bit snippy, thank you for your patience.

This has been one of the hardest projects we've ever taken on.

Everything is mostly done. We're still tying up a few loose ends, because apparently no construction project is ever truly finished.

But the units are occupied.

The building is standing.

The laundry machines work.

The AC is cold.

And, finally, we couldn't be happier to have our lives back.

More than anything, we're excited about what this building can provide for years to come.

Kanab is a special place, and we want the people who live and work here to have the opportunity to actually live here.

We're proud to have created four small, private, intentionally designed homes for the people who make outdoor adventure possible.

And we're incredibly grateful to everyone who helped us get here.



Thanks for cheering us on. Thanks for keeping us fed. And thanks for believing in this crazy idea with us.

Remind me to never build anything again.