This Preloved Caravan Was Transformed Into a Slice of 1970s Palm Springs

Chris Schalkx
·6 min read
“We’re three friends who really believed in each other’s talents,” says Anna (right), looking back on the renovation. “I don’t have a design background, while the others do. I was so chuffed they let me have such a say in it.” Whinnie is pictured on the left and Emma in the center.
“We’re three friends who really believed in each other’s talents,” says Anna (right), looking back on the renovation. “I don’t have a design background, while the others do. I was so chuffed they let me have such a say in it.” Whinnie is pictured on the left and Emma in the center.

One summer day in 2020, travel journalist Anna Hart’s phone lit up with a WhatsApp message from two friends. “We wanted to see if you’re up for a li’l weird business venture,” it read. “Wanna buy a caravan together and make it into a kitsch holiday home of dreams?” Anna’s answer followed almost instantly. She was in.

It was the birth of Club Jupiter, a caravan turned Airbnb just outside Margate, a coastal town two hours east of London. Stuck at home with design projects on hold and travel at a standstill, the trio—Anna, art consultant Emma Jane Palin, and interior designer Whinnie Williams—chipped in £8,000 each (approximately $11,000) to buy a preloved 2010 Willerby BK Bluebird caravan. “She was very beige, but we instantly knew we loved her,” Anna says.

BEFORE: “The caravan was perfectly acceptable when we bought it,” says Anna of the preloved 2010 Willerby BK Bluebird. “But it wasn’t the kind of place you’d see on the pages of say, Condé Nast Traveler. Or that people like us would want to stay in.”
BEFORE: “The caravan was perfectly acceptable when we bought it,” says Anna of the preloved 2010 Willerby BK Bluebird. “But it wasn’t the kind of place you’d see on the pages of say, Condé Nast Traveler. Or that people like us would want to stay in.”
AFTER: The couch, upholstered in Poodle & Blonde velvet, was given a brass-like base with adhesive metallic film. With the help of a set-design company, the owners also built a Modernist-looking faux fireplace that, according to Anna, “felt very Palm Springs.” The dining table is an upcycled Habitat table found on Facebook Marketplace.

As the friends initially bonded over a shared love for midcentury modern and retro design, settling on a theme for the renovation was easy. “We wanted a sort of budget 1970s Palm Springs vibe,” says Anna. The mood board included snapshots from her last pre-pandemic trip to Palm Springs Modernism Week, during which she toured the home of Frank Sinatra, as well as Elvis Presley’s honeymoon hideaway. Inspiration also came from Anna and Whinnie’s stay at the Ball-Paylore House in Tucson, Arizona, designed by architect Arthur T. Brown for two female librarians who each wanted identical bedrooms and a shared living space (“The most fabulous expression of female friendship,” the trio shared on their Instagram).

The bulk of the renovation work didn’t kick off until March of this year, when the women stripped the living room, bathrooms, and bedrooms of their original fixtures. The ceiling (bland and off-white) was covered with stained wood, while the floor was replaced with a Marmoleum checkerboard pattern. But not everything had to go. “We really loved the original curved sofa,” Anna says. “It’s a British caravan icon—a large space for everyone to sit when it rains outside.” They had it upholstered with fabric from Whinnie’s interior brand Poodle & Blonde and created a clever storage space underneath.

AFTER: “We wanted to show that beautiful design is accessible to everyone,” Anna says. “You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of pounds to create a beautiful space.”
AFTER: “We wanted to show that beautiful design is accessible to everyone,” Anna says. “You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of pounds to create a beautiful space.”
BEFORE: The second bathroom contains only a small washbasin and a toilet but felt equally gloomy before the renovation.
BEFORE: The second bathroom contains only a small washbasin and a toilet but felt equally gloomy before the renovation.
AFTER: “I call this the tutti-frutti room,” says Anna. The original cabinets and wallpaper were painted orange, while the washbasin and toilet were replaced with another set of bathroom fixtures in baby pink and blue. The small alcove was covered in terrazzo Marmoleum, and one of the walls is now a pinboard for polaroids and postcards.
AFTER: The original floor was covered with terrazzo-like Marmoleum, while pastel-colored bathroom fixtures (“destined for landfill, but we thought they were so charming,” says Anna) replaced the original ones for a retro look.
AFTER: The original floor was covered with terrazzo-like Marmoleum, while pastel-colored bathroom fixtures (“destined for landfill, but we thought they were so charming,” says Anna) replaced the original ones for a retro look.

The kitchen, too, was fixed up instead of replaced. They DIY’ed a fluted wood look by gluing molding strips to the cabinet and created a backsplash from glazed tiles as a retro accent. Though they initially painted the cabinets in a dark teal, it felt a little “too kitsch,” so they opted for an olive-y green instead. It’s a perfect hue to match the brass sink, which was salvaged from a dumpster and needed only a bit of polishing for a second lease on life.

Each of the founders spearheaded the design of one of the three bedrooms, an idea picked up from one of Anna’s favorite hotels, the retro-pink Madonna Inn, located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. “It’s a fabulous and really ridiculous 1950s motel,” Anna says. “Every bedroom is themed, with names like ‘Irish Hills’ and ‘Swiss Chalet.’ It’s so kitsch but also so fun.”

BEFORE: “It felt a bit like a prison cell,” says Anna of one bedroom, which she redesigned with jungle shacks in Southeast Asia in mind.
BEFORE: “It felt a bit like a prison cell,” says Anna of one bedroom, which she redesigned with jungle shacks in Southeast Asia in mind.
AFTER: Anna replaced the single beds for a double and created a bed frame out of bamboo for a tiki feel. The wall opposite the bed (not pictured) was covered with a bronze-acrylic mirror to create the illusion of extra space. Most of the furnishings, including the rattan shelves and lampstands, are vintage. Part of the “Jungle Room”’s mood board was Elvis Presley’s Jungle Room in Graceland. “So tacky and ridiculous,” says Anna. “But so fun.”

Anna’s responsibility, the “Jungle Room,” was originally fitted with two bunks, which she says “made it look a bit like a prison cell.” As the slanted ceiling reminded her of a bamboo shack, she went for a jungle theme with a touch of 1970s tiki. “I wanted to take guests on a trip to the Bornean jungle by way of Elvis Presley’s Jungle Room in Graceland,” she explains. To counteract the fiberglass and plastic usually associated with caravan interiors, she chose natural materials such as bamboo for the ceiling and bed frame, and woven-rattan paneling for the wall.

BEFORE: “We wanted to show that caravans don’t have to be replaced.”
BEFORE: “We wanted to show that caravans don’t have to be replaced.”
AFTER: “As a travel writer, I’ve seen so much good design,” says Anna. “It’s been a real joy to turn all that knowledge into a real project.”
AFTER: “As a travel writer, I’ve seen so much good design,” says Anna. “It’s been a real joy to turn all that knowledge into a real project.”

Whinnie designed the largest bedroom, “The Lonely Heart Saloon Room.” Following a cowgirl theme and a hot-pink color palette, furnishing includes vintage bullhorns, a headboard upholstered in vintage cowhide, and a DIY heart-shaped mirror that lights up like a beauty parlor. The wallpaper, dusty pink with cowgirl illustrations inspired by a 10-day vacation at a ranch in Arizona, is Whinnie’s own design.

AFTER: “[The Disco Room] is pretty much all bed, but at least very dazzling,” says Anna.
AFTER: “[The Disco Room] is pretty much all bed, but at least very dazzling,” says Anna.

For the “Disco Room” next door, Emma took cues from Studio 54 and swathed the walls in silver sequined fabric. The sunken bed was upholstered in a velvet-like material and the ceiling covered in a cut-to-size acrylic mirror. The eye-catcher, however, is the neon Club Jupiter logo custom-made by Yellowpop, which hangs above the bed.

After four months of renovating, Club Jupiter opened to guests this June. “Our goal was to show that caravan holidays could be aspirational and quite cool,” says Anna. “And, ethically, it all checks out—as an Airbnb, it’s not taking any properties off the rental market. Ultimately, we’d love to end up with a constellation of different caravans around the U.K.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest