Inside a 1937 Hunt Housecar: Stories from the RV/MH Hall of Fame

Recorded onsite during 2026 Hershey RV Show

Jennifer sits down inside a 1937 Hunt Housecar at the Hershey RV Show with Brian Artherton of the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum & Library. The unit was built by a Hollywood cinematographer who was tired of working out of a hot tent on movie sets. It’s believed to be the first RV with a built-in shower and toilet. Brian shares the history behind it, why the museum’s library matters, and how to turn an Elkhart County trip into a full vintage-RV road trip.

In this episode:

• The 1937 Hunt Housecar: a hidden toilet under the couch, a lift-up pantry, real oak walls, and a custom flower light bulb
• How the unit was found, restored, and toured around the country, and how a 1938 promotional photo revealed its original color
• The museum’s library: bound periodicals, sales ads, and build-it-yourself trailer plans from the 1930s and 40s
• Why the library needs donations of brochures and family RV manufacturing history, and how visitors can photograph or copy materials
• The oldest unit in the collection, a 1913 Earl (as in Harley Earl), displayed beside a Ford runabout
• The toy and model RV room, with over a thousand units from around the world
• How the museum grew from 10-12,000 visitors a year to over 30,000, and from an all-volunteer team to a paid staff
• The 1931 Tennessee Traveler, headed to the museum at the end of next month, and what’s coming to the Hershey Vintage Car Swap Meet and Concours d’Elegance
• Brian’s path from the Southern California car scene to vintage camper trailers

Planning a visit to Elkhart County:

• Boondocking is welcome on the museum’s west side, with no membership in any app or organization required.
• 30 amp service is available through the front desk.
• There’s a dump station when the lot isn’t in use for an event.
• Brian mentioned a fee of around $30 but said to call the front desk for current pricing and event conflicts.
• Nearby, take a factory tour (Brian mentioned Axiom), and visit the Amish ice cream shop near the Goshen fairgrounds.
• Brian’s road trip suggestion: 
  • Stop at the Airstream museum and factory tours in Wayne County, Ohio. The oldest unit there is a 1936 Airstream, and the tours are free.
  • Next, go to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum near Fort Wayne.
  • Finish at the Hall of Fame.

Links:

• RV/MH Heritage Foundation | Museums, Hall of Fame & Events
• Photos from this visit on LearnToRV.com: [add blog link]
• The Museum is both an RV Overnights & Harvest Host stop

Guest: Brian Artherton, RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum & Library

Keep the wheels turning 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

So you're back at Learn to RV the podcast. And I made a mistake a couple weeks ago. So Stan and I went to the Motorhome Hall of Fame while I was out in El Cart this year. We were out at the frog rally. And Stan recorded all the audio inside the Hall of Fame. And all I have is B-roll. So I am so glad you're here at the Hershey show. So we're gonna sit down and ask some questions with Brian here at this amazing unit, which he's gonna tell us all about.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So what we are sitting in is a 1937 Hunt Housecar. The gentleman was a cinematographer for Hollywood. So Shirley Temple, amongst others, have been in this camper. And the idea he had was at the time you would be on a movie set and you're in a tent, a hot tent. This particular unit, uh, when he built it, is the first to have a shower and toilet. And the toilet actually hides underneath this couch we have here. Wow. The pantry behind you up front that lifts up is also another innovative feature. Uh, you saw that in the late 40s and 50s that are powered for your house. Yeah. And sometimes you see it today on a rare occasion. So this unit uh was found by David Woodworth, and he was hired by RVI to tour the US. And every year he'd find a new unit, restore it, and take it. You see it presently in silver. He had no idea what color it was because the hippies had hippieized it. So I found a 1938 promotional photo. Uh, I forget the young man's name, but he turned out to be the voice of Bambi. And later on, he also was in this, uh he was either the son of Dracula, but that was the name of the movie. So he had a whole list. He's 93 years old today. So I'm gonna reach out to him to get more history that he might know about this particular unit.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Well, and that's what I love about the Hall of Fame is that it's a museum, but it's a museum where you can go learn about all of it, and you don't just have RVs there. Correct. So for me, I went searching for something. So I spent about three and a half hours in a library because a couple years ago, Escape's was sold to Harvest Hosts. Correct. And a lot of people didn't know that. Well, the story of the bell is missing from the internet right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And so I went looking in the library and I didn't find it yet. I have to make some phone calls still. But I mean, if you're gonna find it and if you have days to spend in the library, it's there.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

You do. We have a lot of missing stuff, however, because I even know of a person in California in the shed in the backyard, is all of their family's RV manufacturing history, and they will not turn it over to anybody. And it's just sitting there and rotting. So unless you donate it to our library, it doesn't exist. So we have a lot of periodicals that were bound in a book, and we have a lot of those. So even when I do my research, a lot of it is just sales ads that are in these magazines of the era. We even have a home-built RV that the museum had no clue until I looked at it because a lot of your magazines at the time, like this one right here, yeah, um, shows you how an RV was built in the 30s and 40s, for example, in this particular case. Well, a lot of the times, just like in a Boy Scout magazine, we had goodies in the back that we can buy. And so it'll have different items. Well, you can buy windows, doors, things like this. You can see hunting was exciting back at the time. So it'll have news articles about that. But there were manufacture parts that you can order and in the magazine, it may have something similar to this to teach you how to build that particular trailer with those products. Wow. Ahead of its time. Yeah. It's unfortunate we don't see that today because there's not a lot of people that are good craftsmen anymore at home.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. Well, and I mean this one is an absolute, you can't see it, I know, but like the wood walls are actual wood walls.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, this is real oak.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, it's absolutely stunning in here. It almost looks like the inside of a ship.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And so that's how a lot of them were built back then.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Very well built. And I'm gonna give you some flowers.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Aw. Ooh, that's a cool light bulb.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

This is something that we've lost over the years is the artwork of light bulbs. And inside a real light bulb? That's a real working light bulb. And the flowers are the filaments, and they light up. They're so cool. Um little quirks like that are really, really unique in this era that we've lost. And I know a lot of people you'll hear in general. All I see is the same colors for the interior or exterior. How can you customize? These were something fun you could do back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, no joke. This is really cool. It's like a little rose in here. If you can't see it, because it's we're not really that close, but it's really cool. And it just screws in a regular light bulb.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Screws in a regular light bulb. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

That is really, really neat.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

And typical lights of this era, you would actually have a shade over the top. This is great because you don't have to worry about that. So, what is your most historic piece? So, our oldest unit is also the oldest unit in the country, which is a 1913 Earl, as in Harley Earl. Oh, wow. So he worked at Ford at the time. They had a disagreement. Most people that follow the Chevy versus Ford history will know that he became the designer for Chevrolet for many, many years. So we actually have it. It's immaculately restored. And in front of it, we of course have to have a Ford runabout. So there's your Chevy against Ford.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Well, and you also have a whole room that's dedicated to toys in this industry. That's been a fun one to go through. I probably have tons of b-roll just from that room alone.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Those are new. So our previous president, Daryl Sear, kind of helped have that come into play. We had a person reach out and say, hey, I got all this stuff. And a lot of times you just blow things away and say, uh, okay. No, this guy has toys from all around the world, from Volkswagens to you name it. So Daryl got the proper display cases. So as you're transitioning to the back haul area, you've got stuff on both sides. And you can stand there for an hour, frankly, and just look at those all different scales. I think there's over a thousand units.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

I am sure we were there that long. So originally, when we went to the Hall of Fame, we had partnered with RV Riffing Solutions. That's actually our company. Yeah. And so the original owner of that company had owned it for many, many years. He had passed away in 2024. Okay. So it was actually 2024 that we came because we wanted to see how far back his ads went in the back of the magazines that they told us he was in. And they went back as far as he said. So it was really kind of cool. But you can see so much there. This pieces in there, you know, there was one that I loved. And I mean, like we were totally smitten with this one. It's the one that looks like a Shagmobile.

unknown 6:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

It has an original FMCA number on it. Correct. Do you know where that came from? Because we were speculating.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I personally don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

I know most units, but not every single detail. So, like this one here, yeah. We have some information, but it's not accurate. Yeah. So David Woodworth had compiled what he could. There wasn't much out there, right? I did some digging because on the side of this, in that photo that I found as a promotional, it says Cord. And then the next part I can't quite make out airplane manufacturer. Cord, as in the cord car, like Duisenberg's Rose Races. He also was into aeronautics. So far, it appears that one of the companies he was part of is from my hometown of Downey, California, where the Apollo space systems were eventually built.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Wow. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So we knew this was built in the LA area. We thought LAX airport. Why? Because at the same time, it was Airstream in one of the other hangars. This is not a body shop. This is all hand forged. Yeah. You had to have skill. Yeah. Um, so who better than somebody making airplanes? It's neat when you start digging. Our whole point of the library is to someday have a digital, you know, and you can just search through the internet. But we need people to donate more product. Whether it's a sales brochure that we don't have, we've had issues because we don't have a full-time librarian. Some people have taken things out without permission. If you want copies, we can make photocopies or take your camera. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

I took tons of pictures. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really cool to know. Now, I also know you're you're you're a stopover for RV overnights and harvest host, correct?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Harvest host is well, there's zero requirements to belong to any organization or app for camping. We've always been open to boondockers. I don't care who you are. If you need power, we do offer 30 amp service, but you got to go to our front desk for that. And we, if the parking lot's not being utilized by an event, we also have a dump station. Oh, nice. So it's it just depends what's going on. You can call ahead and see if there's any events that would block that if you have interest. But on the west side, we have legitimate RV parking for boondocking.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Oh, that's very cool. And how much do you charge for that?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

I believe it's around $30, but you'd have to update yourself by calling the front desk.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah, that's not terrible at all, though. I mean, like the reality is that and and then you can stop in and see the Hall of Fame before you pull out that day.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Well, I mean, the concept is you come and see our museum, right? But what's made in the area? RVs. Yeah. Check out all the different manufacturers. What is their schedule for having tours? So, like Axiom, they have theirs. They're not far. And so you just leave your camper, drive your car over, and you can spend a week there and still not see everything.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Easily. And there's so many great little restaurants in town. We found an ice cream shop out in Goshen near the fairgrounds that is run by an Amish family. Yes. That everybody said you have to go. And I was like, all right. And we pulled down their driveway. So it was kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

So yeah, Ship Shawana has a large concentration of Amish if you're looking for Amish. But um, I still tell you, go to Wayne County in Ohio. So if you stop off in Wayne County and you're coming to the museum, stop at the Airstream Museum. Our oldest unit, I believe we have in there, is a 36 Airstream. Wow. If you love the Rocketeer, that's what the front and back look like. It is so cool. But while you're there, they have three different facilities you can tour. So at that location is all the pole behinds. It's about an hour and a half tour just there. They're all free. Oh, wow. For the for the tours. The museum, there's a small fee because you know, we're maintaining the displays, but so worth it.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Then make your next stop in uh Fort Wayne area. Go to the Auburn Car Museum. Okay. Auburn Core Duisenberg. Out back is a truck museum in the old factory. You can do all of this in a day's time. And that's just the start of your adventure in Elkhart County there.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Brian, how did you get into all of this?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So I come from the automotive world, customization in Southern California. Moved to New England. You got to do a little something. You get you get tired of doing the vintage car thing, right? Okay, this kind of started because friends of mine were in the car scene. They have little ones. What do you do with little ones? Okay, go polish the rims. Okay, but what do you do when it's nap time? Where do you have your fluids, your snacks, shade? So a lot of our car shows are over asphalt, like we are here. And so some of the guys got little small trailers they can fit in their yards because our houses out there are only maybe a thousand square feet on average, right? They're old GI homes. So they got the restored car. They're not giving that up to start a new project. They do a trailer. Now they pull it behind. This was back in uh 96, roughly, when the vintage scene started to implode. And now you can actually get a magazine, the Vintage Camper Trailer magazine. And articles are submitted by people. Fantastic. It's snowballed. Now it's its own industry. Huge collectibility. People love this since we started coming here a few years ago. They're looking forward. What are you bringing this time?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, and you bring something different every year. Last year you you were out in a different spot too. Correct. So let's talk about that. We're at the Hershey RV show. We'll have just finished up by the time this airs. But the reality is you're here every year. Will you be in this spot next year? Do you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

I did uh uh ask and see what our plans were because unfortunately there's a tent up front that they sell products in and they used to be also inside. It's tough on staffing, yeah, especially this day and age. So they wanted to expand their space. This is what was available. We're worried about the porta potties. We're worried by the food trucks. I haven't had lunch yet, but yes, I will be over there. But what's nice here, it's easy pace. We don't have people zooming by with golf carts. It's a little more relaxed over here, and we have the shade tree. So I'm liking this spot.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, very good. You're gonna have to put some chairs out next year and just invite people over for a campfire.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

If we can legally get away with the fire, we Well, we just have to pretend.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

We have to get you a fake one.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Actually, with last year's unit, the 1931 Tennessee Traveler. That was gorgeous. It's got a potbelly stove. I did light fire.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Is that one in the museum?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Uh it will be at the end of next month. So I still have it at my facility. When we pull these out, our goal is to address any issues that they have. Like this one has windows here where people have come in and abused it, either removed them, broke them. Uh, we have some windows. These are all plexiglass in this case. They're cracking due to age. This probably had all glass in its original form, but very expensive to have made today. Sure. So we're because they're funny shapes. They are. They're they have contours. So our goal is to not just bring it out for exposure, but it's also to fix them, clean them up. In this case, being a drivable unit, it's going to be running and driving in two weeks with new tires to be back here at Hershey for the Hershey Vintage Car Swap Meet and Concourse Delegance across the street.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

So if you're watching this, this will have already aired. Thank you so much for taking the time today. I so appreciate it. So that's always I'm glad you stopped in.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I mean, it's it is something unique.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Learn to RV is a different. I'm here as a business, but I'm here as an influencer, which is a weird space in that too, because I'm not like everybody else that's an influencer. And learn to RV is that space for everybody. Correct. It's just kind of a nice way to be able to share the information in the RV industry in a different way. And I'm not looking at it from an influencer side, more of an education side.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Well, that's what we're trying to do. My wife and I have been doing this for a few years now. We don't get paid. With what we've done is taken the museum from 10 to 12,000 visitors a year to well over 30 now. That's awesome. So we had a volunteer staff when that started. Now we have paid staff at the museum. So we've seen this increase. Now, obviously, the the people coming in are not paying the bills. We're a full event center now. Right. On 48 acres. So to elevate the museum from where it was to where it's now is an amazing thing to be part of.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Absolutely. So they can find you online. You want to do your shameless plug? Here you go.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

You can find us online with RVMH Hall of Fame Museum and Library as a search term. We are at .org, so you might find a couple variants of that. For us in particular, it's the RVMH uh Hall of Fame Traveling Museum, I believe is our domain. But you just do a simple search, you'll find us. We'll make sure it's in the show notes and all the links. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Well, thanks for tuning in today. We appreciate you. I appreciate you. You're here with Learn to RV the podcast. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. And we'll see you around the campfire next time and hopefully at the museum.