https://www.mlive.com/news/2023/09/a-vintage-plane-custom-treasure-hunts-await-guests-at-this-michigan-airbnb.html?utm_campaign=mlivedotcom_sf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1gr0nrMAPUk5CzutB8AtsINHIWw076vZqPUAay9w1Sa7cBnm3B4ReTAK8

Somewhere between an artist’s working studio, a rotating museum wing, outdoor grounds for sculpture, and a wonderspace for creating art yourself, you can find our beloved inn, La Chiara™ perched on the beautiful downtown bluff of Buchanan, Michigan.

La Chiara™ is a vertically split inn duplex that we’ve built into 2 lodgings which includes our Innkeeper’s Quarters. This listing is a separate postal address and is an entire half of the vertically split duplex; the upstairs and downstairs units combined, which sleeps 6 in queen beds or 8 on the foldout King.

I’m happily available to help with any issues that arise as your innkeeper as I live on premises with my wife Katrina and daughter, Chiara, year-round.

Boasting over two dozen works of art in media including photography, water color, sculpture, digital prints, laser, woodwork, printmaking, and repurposing, La Chiara™ aims to serve as an expanding, multi-faceted lodging and recreation wonderspace.

In addition to art, there is great kayaking on the St. Joseph river. La Chiara™ is located 1.2 miles from the Buchanan dam which lends itself to a spectacular downstream paddle or float from Buchanan to the Berrien Springs dam.

Outdoor activities include laying in the hammock, walking the grounds for sculpture and art, chilling on the porch swing, enjoying the breeze on your private balcony, creating original outdoor art yourself, corn hole, bocce, your custom treasure hunt and the Plane Lounge.

The Plane Lounge is a great place for coffee, wine, beer, provision or even an aviation-themed cocktail (alcohol and provisions not supplied). The Plane Lounge is a repurposed 1966 Mooney M20 fuselage - generally open from dawn till 12pm.

Mooney aircraft are part of a family of piston-powered, four-seat, propeller-driven, general aviation aircraft, all featuring low wings and tricycle gear, manufactured by the Mooney International Corporation.

Here at La Chiara™ however, the Plane Lounge is known for its exposed guts of tubes that now echo adventure with a Bluetooth speaker, a Stanley cocktail shaker set, LEDs, and a mini-fridge with some beverages to get you started.

Feel free to stock the mini fridge accordingly for your stay. We hope you find the Plane Lounge fruitful as a refreshing ambiance for conversation and ideas.

La Chiara™ is located 25 minutes from Lake Michigan and 21 minutes to The University of Notre Dame. One of our favorite aspects of living in Buchanan is access to the public kayak/boat launch 1.1 miles away that is free to use and is also free to park.

Safety for you, us, the surrounding community (most especially the Elementary School and our neighbors) is paramount. We’re honored and extraordinarily grateful to unofficially partner with the Buchanan Police Department to assist in making the neighborhood the safest possible drop-off and pick-up location for children that we can during the calendar school year as well as through their Summer programming. We have five outward facing security cameras in use: at the front doors, side windows and overlooking the Courtyard Plane Lounge. We do not allow smoking cigarettes. There is no smoking cigarettes inside, and no smoking cigarettes outside anywhere on the property.

It’s not uncommon to see an officer parked in a corner of the property so they can more easily direct school traffic and we consider ourselves very fortunate to be in a position to greater safety efforts for the Elementary School population.

Taking its name from our first grade daughter, La Chiara™ is as much of a creative, de-risked, development tool as we could design to guide our daughter through the adventures of entrepreneurship; from the janitorial to the curatorial art direction, and finance.

Chiara does everything with me from properly cleaning the bathrooms, to supplying the art program. She currently has 5 works of art on display and from what I’ve gathered, we should expect surprise installations.

Our family is on premises and very grateful to host you as Innkeepers. We believe strongly in remediation if any issues arise. In fact, our policy for any issue that arises is for me to handle it asap, but I also share every communicated issue with my daughter Chiara. It's actually a great policy for life too; if something is wrong, what words would you choose knowing a little girl will hear them and do her best to find a solution?

Our family moved here in 2021 and it’s easy for us to see why Buchanan, Michigan was named, “Nicest Place in America 2020.” We truly hope to be a lit doorway showcasing Buchanan and adding to its growing fascination.

Finally, I leave you with this since I’ve heard it now more than twice from guests... There's healing to be found here; from wounds known and unknown. I can’t explain how but I’m eternally grateful to be part of something that has this capacity as well as the ability to hopefully inspire creative expressions and preserve forever a sense of exploration and wonderment.

We wish you travels of double the adventure and quadruple the safety!

"La Chiara: What’s rad to you?"™


Frank, Katrina and Chiara