Haines Shoe House

So cute! My family was headed to Dutch Wonderland, and the night before we swung by some local attractions, including the Shoe House. The sisters that work there (one of them owns it with her husband) were so incredibly nice and willing to spend time telling us all about the house. It is really interesting and there is some cool history behind it. This isn’t a destination in-​and-​of-​itself, but if you are passing by, I’d recommend a stop! Get some ice cream and tour a house shaped like a shoe.

This place was on my bucket list for years but for some reason I wasn’t quite sure where it was and consequently didn’t get there. Once I found that it was right along the stretch of Rt. 30 that I had to drive to another event, I absolutely had to stop. Note that Rt. 30 currently doesn’t have great signage showing where this place is and that the road it’s on runs over, not into, Rt. 30 so it will be necessary to exit Route 30 at Hallam and drive a short distance to «Shoe House Road.»
Having heard bits and pieces of the Shoe’s ups and downs over the past 10 years, I wasn’t sure if I’d find the Shoe in good shape or bad shape or if people would be allowed to go inside. I was pleasantly surprised to find the house currently in tip-​top physical shape and taken over by new young owners who have guided tours going on continuously (it costs about 5 bucks a head to get the tour of the inside — hanging around outside on the grounds is free) and serve super awesome homemade ice cream (the way I like it — not too sweet, not too creamy, not like custard, served quite hard and doesn’t get melty) out of a little shop in the sole of the shoe, which also sells a few shoe-​venirs.
The outside features great views of the Shoe and its matching shoe doghouse, shoe mailbox, and shoe-​themed fence, as well as a few non-​shoe-​related kiddie games and a picnic area to eat ice cream. The inside, which contains a living room, bath, bedroom and kitchen on the first floor and more bedrooms and a second bath in the upstairs, has been lovingly restored as a 1940s/​early 1950s vintage home. Some of the paint colors seemed a bit modern for the selected era, but other than that care has been taken with the furnishings and appliances to make it look authentic. It reminded me of visiting my grandma’s house in the 1960s. There’s also a lot of memorabilia of Mr. Haines, the shoe magnate who built the house. The guide, who appeared to be in her 20s, did a good job of explaining everything although she seemed a little shaky on some of the vintage era stuff. You ARE allowed to take pictures and the guide will even take pictures of you in the house and posing in front of it.
Note that you are not allowed to stay overnight in the house — the owners don’t even live in it and it’s maintained as more of a museum — and also there isn’t a proper bathroom that you can use on the premises. There’s a porta-​potty outside but nothing indoors (the house bathrooms are for display only). So I strongly suggest you stop at a gas station on the main drag before proceeding down Shoe House Road. Other than that, nice place to visit; everybody will enjoy the outside, while the inside is more for fans of retro interiors (as I am) and not so much for kids, who won’t be able to remember or appreciate that old refrigerator like us aging people. It is also clever to see how so many rooms were wedged into the unusually shaped and curved inside of a shoe.

Enjoyable unique house with good tour, cute treats in the snack shop. Went with friends and we all enjoyed the house tour, looked around the small kitchen and café on ground level while waiting and got to talk with the friendly new owners. You can take plenty of pictures in the shoe, looked well decorated and in good condition after some restoration work. Wanted to help support them and tried one of the shoe shaped brownies, was okay, didn’t need the extra calories but it was fun. Check out the dog house in yard too! Recommend a trip!

Look, this is not going to be Disney World or Williamsburg. It is just a delightful place for the family to go for an hour or two. Children will love being inside the shoe; senior citizens will enjoy the antiques and history (my 90 year-​old parents thought it was wonderfully informative); people in construction will enjoy seeing how a house can be built in the shape of a shoe.
The tour guide was affable older gentleman, and the proprietress of the snack/​ice cream shop was very friendly. Cost for the tour is $ 5 per person (I believe discounts for young children but can’t be sure), and the costs of the shop are reasonable. My only negative is that the selection of ice cream flavors is small (about ½ dozen) – no chocolate the day I was there. But I got vanilla with fudge topping which was good. The brand is Becks. Contrary to rules of the previous owners, you ARE allowed to take pictures in the shoe.

So let’s start this one by saying that everything you either knew in the past about the Shoe House or had heard about the Shoe House is now obsolete. You know what I’m talking about, the crazy no picture taking of the interior policy or the website that looked like crap and had little to no information about such minutia such as hours of operation or prices.
But now there are new sheriffs in town as of 2015 and such nonsense has been replaced with a far more approachable & friendly attitude that makes coming here the ultimate roadside curiosity/​junket/​side trip.
The condensed version of the house’s history goes something like this:
The house was the idea of eccentric businessman Mahlon Haines. Part Milton Hershey (he believed heavily in religion and the Boy Scouts) and part Richard Branson (not afraid in the least to do about anything including self exploitation if it meant advertising to sell more shoes) Haines had the house built by showing a work boot to an architect with the directive of «Build Me a House Like This».
The end result is what still stands today with a three bedroom house that has a kitchen, dining room and two bathrooms which were completed in 1948. The house itself is 48 feet long (48 feet long and built in 1948 — coincidence???), 25 feet tall on five levels with several stained glass windows including the infamous one of Haines himself holding two shoes above his own nickname Haines the «Shoe Wizard».
Haines only briefly lived in the house. Instead he saw a greater use for it as a marketing tool. Haines used the house for years to give all expense paid week long stays to newlywed & elderly couples in the area. This included maid service and a chauffeur who would take the couples wherever and naturally at the end of the stay everybody left with free Haines shoes.
Haines could afford to do such things because at the height of his company’s fortune he had over forty stores in PA and Maryland along with a seven figure net worth. His wealth was divided at the time of his death to several charitable organizations along with his church and sadly not long after his death the Haines Shoe Company ceased to exist. When Haines died in 1962 at age 87, he left the house to his employees, who sold it to a dentist two years later. It operated for about 20 years as an ice cream parlor, and building tours were available. Haines’ granddaughter, Annie, bought it in 1987 and renovated it, but the bank repossessed it because she was unable to keep maintaining it.
With that out of the way let’s talk about what’s actually there currently:
Hours are from 11 – 7 Wednesday-​Saturday and Sunday 11 – 5 from the first day of Spring until November.
The price is $ 5 per person (cash or credit/​debit although they charge an extra fifty cents for credit/​debit transactions) and on the first floor (the former carport) there is a small bakery which smells divine when the cookies & cupcakes are being rendered by one of the owners. They also carry ice cream from Beck’s in York, PA.
An updated website is on the way and for right now all needed info is on the shoe’s FB page.
The tour itself is not very long but it’s truly interesting as where the hell else can you tour a house shaped like a shoe plus there are a lot of interesting vintage pieces in the house (most not original but of the period) plus Haines’s story is very unique in and of itself?
This is by no means a destination onto itself but if you’re rolling by on Route 30 and you’ve got an extra hour to kill the Shoe House is a very bizarre/​cool/​odd/​interesting attraction that is worth the visit.

Unique to say the least, the tour is well worth you time and is conducted by one of the owners. I was surprised at how spacious the interior was consisting of 3-​bedrooms, and two full baths along with a kitchen and living room. After our tour we enjoyed some ice cream and purchased a shoe house souvenir.

Awesomeness shoe house. Well maybe not so awesome but it is a neat place to stop for ice cream on the way to Hershey to visit a bus museum.
They sell Hershey’s ice cream which is no surprise. Frankly if you like to see a house shaped like a shoe, you’d hate to see what gorges on in the one shapes like a dildo. (I suspect thy sell ice cream too)

«Very disappointed that photographs inside the shoe house weren’t allowed. If we had known this we probably wouldn’t have driven a half hour to see it while we were on vacation in Lancaster. I think the owners need to rethink the no photographs rule.

This is a review based on a drive by. Unfortunately the day we were there the shoe house was closed.
The shoe house is interesting, that’s for sure! We read all about the history on Wiki and enjoyed our brief drive by experience. It’s clearly visible from the freeway but the exit it down a ways. If I’m ever back in the area I will definitely be stopping by for a tour.
The grounds are clean and well kept, it is a sight and worth stopping by!

The Shoe house was awesome. The owner was very informative & knowledgeable about the history behind the shoe.

The Shoe House has always been on my list of odd places to visit, and thanks to Gingersnaps review, I finally decided to go one afternoon. There was some parking in the back of the house, which is just off the Hallam exit of Rt 30. The tour itself was 4.50 per person, kids are free, and there is no inside photography (I guess they want some security or privacy.) Its run by a husband and wife who live in York County.
The house was originally built in 1948 by millionaire Mahlon Haines a local shoe salesman, who had nearly 40 stores throughout Pennsylvania and Maryland. Word is he’d let newlywed couples stay there for free. (not sure why, because he was insanely rich?) It was owned and run by different people over time and has offered tours & ice cream going back decades.
The tour starts in the sole of the shoe, then goes up and shows you the bedrooms and bathrooms, storage areas. All of the rooms had pretty unique storage, and the 2^nd bathroom had a sink in the hallway, it was very cozy. Tons of stuff in the house was shoe related. Some rooms had miniature shoes, shoe bedspreads, pictures of shoes, shoe toothbrush holders, etc. There was even a birdhouse and dog house in the shape of a shoe!
Finally the tour goes down to the heel, where there is a kitchen and a small gift shop. The shop itself had little trinkets, magnets, snacks and ice cream. It was alright, the owners gave us a small picture for our daughter to color. There were lots of stairs to climb and it wasnt wheelchair accessible. Not sure, but might be cash only.

I think it’s a great piece of kitsch! And area history!
It’s nestled in a tuft of farmland, just a small stretch away from the main roads and ‘civilization’. You can go there for an inside tour… it’s actually a fully functional house, and you can walk through the bedrooms, kitchen, see the bathrooms… it’s a little ‘home spun’… very cutely decorated. but unfortunately no interior pictures are allowed, nor did I see any for sale by way of postcard of the like. *sigh*
When I went, the tour cost $ 4.50 pp, kids were maybe $ 3? and under 3 were free. We had 6 people on our tour and it got a little bit cramped, which was to be expected. There is a dinette sort of place where the garage used to be, that sells a single design tshirts, postcards, and serves ice cream.
The house is owned by a couple that seems to maintain and run the joint. The husband (??) was so nice, offered to take a picture outside, and was just setting up their new mailbox that he made to replicate the shoehouse.
I really appreciate that they are preserving a piece of area history and sharing it with the public!
Definitely something to check out if you’re in the area!