For stylish campers, a silver bullet
The man who's credited with rejuvenating the Airstream brand confesses that until he started retooling the classic aluminum trailer, he'd never been inside a camper.
"A lot of people are surprised to hear that," says San Francisco designer Christopher Deam. "But I'm a surfer, a cyclist, skier, and outdoors person. I've done a lot of tent camping. At this point, I've also stayed at the Four Seasons, and I think both of those experiences are equally important when you're designing a trailer. It's a hybrid tool for travel in a gracious manner, and you need to have your feet in both worlds to do it."
Deam's latest Airstream is a design-lover's fantasy. He has teamed with retail Design Within Reach to create a nearly $50,000 luxury trailer, complete with a Nelson ball clock, Tom Dixon coat rack, Heller dinnerware, Matteo linens, and Paul Smith fabrics in the upholstery. On the surface, the marriage of Deam's Airstream and DWR's inventory seems almost too easy. But Deam says that he was judicious in his use of classic pieces, primarily because he didn't want this Airstream (the nearest dealership selling the DWR Airstream is in Watertown, Conn.) to become a mid-century time capsule. The only nod to classic mid-century design is the Nelson ball clock.
What Deam has done with his latest Airstream -- and the five previous models that he designed -- is to strip away many of the changes made since the trailer was introduced in 1936 by Wally Byam. The interior of the classic aluminum shell was hidden behind paneling and the all-aluminum and glass windows had been replaced with rubber and plastic. Deam went back into Airstream's archives to find original parts and re-introduce the Airstream as an all-aluminum trailer.
"There was a lot of thought put into how to make the experience better," he says. "The interiors never lived up to the promise of the exterior. A lot of the ideas and changes were intended to more closely connect someone with the experience of camping rather than to insulate them from it. Exposing the aluminum skin on the interior really shows the quality of the hand-riveted shell. It also reflects the color of the environment you're in. If you're camping in the forest, the light reflected inside the aluminum is a green tone. And the light is completely different when you're at the beach."
People who travel in Airstreams are a notoriously dedicated -- and fickle -- cult. Bruce Littlefield, author of "Airstream Living," says Deam's changes to the camper have been embraced by fanatics of the company.
"It feels bigger, brighter, and shinier on the inside," says Littlefield. "He's really stripped it back and added things like a glass cooktop and a computer workstation. It's completely opened up Airstream to a younger audience."
Deam's foray into trailers was inspired by a renovation of his brother's 675-square-foot cottage. Deam looked at the interior of boats and campers to come up with the design for the home. A magazine subsequently referred to the renovated cottage as the "Airstream cottage." After he read the article, he approached Airstream about working on the campers.
Since that time he's designed the slightly more house-like "perfect cottage" for Breckenridge, a 400-square-foot ultra-modern cottage, and he's now working on his next project for Airstream. "It's top-secret," is all he'll say. As a trailer owner, he's now on his second Airstream.
"A couple of weeks ago I bought a 1959 Airstream that I'm going to renovate to take to Burning Man at the end of the summer," he says. "I think I've become fond of Airstream because it's a very democratic notion -- the idea that anyone can take to the road in a well-designed package." 