Old Airplanes Turned into Houses with Bedrooms, Livingroom, Showers

Grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked in an aerial photo at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, US July 1, 2019. (Reuters)

After losing her house to a fire, Jo Ann Ussery had a peculiar idea: to live in an airplane.
She bought an old Boeing 727 that was destined for the scrapyard, had it shipped to a plot of land she already owned, and spent six months renovating, doing most of the work by herself.
By the end, she had a fully functional home, with over 1,500 square feet of living space, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and even a hot tub – where the cockpit used to be. All for less than $30,000, or about $60,000 in today’s money.
Ussery – a beautician from Benoit, Mississippi – had no professional connection to aviation, and was following the suggestion of her brother-in-law, an air traffic controller.
She lived in the plane from 1995 to 1999, when it was irreparably damaged after falling off the truck that was moving it to a different location.
Although she wasn’t the first person to ever live in an airplane, her flawless execution of the project had an inspirational effect, according to CNN. In the late 1990s, Bruce Campbell, an electrical engineer with a private pilot license, said: “I was driving home and listening to the radio, and they had Jo Ann’s story, and it was amazing I didn’t drive off the road because my focus turned entirely to it.”
A 727 in the woods
Campbell has lived in his own plane – also a Boeing 727 – in the woods of Hillsboro, Oregon: “I still stand on Jo Ann’s shoulder and I’m grateful for the proof of concept. I would never live in a conventional home. No chance.” His project cost $220,000 in total (about $380,000 in today’s money), of which roughly half was for the purchase of the plane.
He says the plane belonged to Olympic Airways in Greece and was even used to transport the remains of the airline’s magnate owner, Aristotle Onassis, in 1975.
“I didn’t know the plane’s history at the time. And I didn’t know that it had an old, 707-style interior. It was really, really awful compared to modern standards. It was functional but it just looked old and crude. Maybe the worst choice for a home,” he said.
Campbell had to work on the plane for a couple of years before being able to live in it. The interiors are no-frills, with a primitive shower made out of a plastic cylinder and a futon sofa for a bed. During the harshest part of winter, Campbell traditionally retreats to a small apartment he owns in the Japanese city of Miyazaki. But the pandemic has made this difficult, and for the past three years he’s been living in the 727 year-round.
Intending to set up an airplane home in Japan as well, he almost bought a second aircraft – a 747– but the deal fell out at the last minute, because the airline decided to keep the aircraft in service for longer than expected.
Campbell frequently gets visitors and even offers lodging in the aircraft free of charge, while in the summer he hosts larger public events with funfair attractions: “Artists perform on the right wing, guests dance in front or behind the wing in the forest,” he added.
One plane isn’t enough
If you think living in an airplane is extravagant enough, how about living in two? That’s the plan for Joe Axline, who owns an MD-80 and DC-9, and plans to execute his grand plan “Project Freedom”, by placing the two planes next to each other in a plot of land in Brookshire.
Axline has lived in the MD-80 for over a decade and is planning to renovate the DC-8 and equip it with recreational areas such as a movie theater and a music room. “I’ve got less than a quarter of a million dollars in the whole project,” said Axline, who has very few running expenses because he owns the land and has built his own water well and sewer system: “The only thing that I have still left is electricity,” he added.
“Living in a house, you have a lot of space. My master bedroom is 5*3 meters. I’ve got two TVs in it, plenty of space to walk around. My living room is good-sized, the dining room seats four, I can cook enough food for a whole bunch of people if they come over. I also have a shower and a toilet. The only thing that I don’t have here is windows that open,” he explains, adding that he just opens the plane’s doors to let fresh air in.
Axline too was interested in a Boeing 747 – living in the “Queen of the Skies” is the airplane homeowner’s ultimate dream – but he gave up when he was confronted with the shipping costs: “The airplane itself was about $300,000, but the shipping cost was $500,000. Half a million dollars to move it. That’s because you can’t drive it through the roads, you’d have to tear it apart, cut it up, slice it and dice it and then put it back together.”
There are other notable examples of airplanes converted to homes. One of the earliest is a Boeing 307 Stratoliner once owned by billionaire and film director Howard Hughes, who spent a fortune remodeling the interior to turn it into a “Flying Penthouse.” After being damaged by a hurricane, it was turned into an extravagant motor yacht and eventually purchased in the 1980s by Florida resident Dave Drimmer. He lived in the plane-boat hybrid for 20 years, before eventually donating it to the Florida Air Museum in 2018.
American country singer Red Lane, who had a past as a plane mechanic, lived for decades in a converted DC-8 that he saved from the scrapyard in the late 1970s. “I have never, ever woken up in this place wishing I was somewhere else,” Lane revealed in a 2006 TV interview.
Those who want to experience a night or two in an airplane home have a few options in the form of hotels; in Costa Rica, the Costa Verde hotel boasts a fully refurbished Boeing 727 – complete with two bedrooms and an ocean view terrace.
In Sweden, Jumbo Stay is a hotel built entirely inside a Boeing 747, sitting on the grounds of Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.
And if you’re just looking to party, there’s another Boeing 747 that can be hired for events with up to 220 people, at Cotswold Airport in England, about 100 miles west of London.