Long before the interstate highway system, before station wagons dotted the miles between Howard Johnson motor lodges, a Stanford alum put Americans on the road to almost anywhere they wanted to go. But as visionary as Wally Byam was, he never could have anticipated what his invention of the Airstream trailer would mean to U.S. culture.
Byam, who died in 1962, was Wallace M. Davis, '21, at Stanford because he was using his stepfather's surname. He got his degree in history, and he had advertising, business and editing positions with the Daily Palo Alto (later the Stanford Daily). Dale Schwamborn, his first cousin once removed, says Byam was searching for a dynamic career path and ultimately found it through his love of camping.
Before the 1920s were over, Byam had designed and built a small but highly utilitarian trailer. From there came the brand that would redefine a home away from home: model after model of aluminum Airstreams that blended style with efficiency. What started as merely "portable shelters," notes Charlie Burke, a Byam researcher, rolled into modernity with stoves, lighting, refrigeration and onboard sanitation. "The more the Airstream resembled the features and comforts of home, the more they appealed to his customers, the more he sold."
During Byam's life, Airstreams were overwhelmingly about travel—or, more specifically, the romance of travel. Hence Byam's renowned caravans, including a 41-trailer expedition from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo in 1959-60. But even though caravans, rallies and personal wanderlust remain central to the Airstream mystique, the appeal now ranges from microhousing to art.
Some vintage Airstreams are as prized as rare cars. And owning any kind of Airstream seems to ignite a do-it-yourself or decorating obsession, as popularized in countless online photos of customized interiors. Renovated Airstreams have been touted as ideally minimalist homes; at a South African hotel, they've been transformed into rooftop accommodations with majestic views. With Airstreams you get empowerment.
Artist Susan Altstatt, '62, owns two and every so often includes them in her paintings. "They're beautiful," she says, "they're indestructible, and you can drive off into the wilderness with all the comforts of home."
RALLY TIME: Airstream owners are more than capable of going it alone as adventurers and explorers. But they also have a tradition of being fiercely communal. They've camped in massive flocks for decades; this group of Wally Byam Caravan Club members departed in force from a rally in Wyoming in 1965. Thor Industries, born in 1980 when its co-founders acquired Airstream as a company, recalls the 1950s as the era when travel trailers became "a movement and a culture."
Photo: Courtesy Susan Altstatt
PICTURE PERFECT: Among the things artist Susan Altstatt, '62, has graduated from is a 1964 Airstream. She needed something bigger—a 1986 Airstream, to be specific—for trips to places such as Death Valley. She still has the older trailer at her home in Los Altos Hills. But this scene dates to a 2001 sojourn in San Bernardino. She has painted it more than once: It's called Might Even Have to Move Inside and is an acrylic on canvas.
Photo: Courtesy Cathy Caballero
ALL WARMED UP: Cathy Caballero, '70, is a Montana resident who took her new Airstream to Arizona last November to flee a season she describes with two words: "Winters—yuck!" She has two flat-screen TVs, LED lighting and a parking spot alongside a walnut tree in Skull Valley. "If only I had a washer/dryer stack unit," she says, "I would probably never leave." Regardless, she loves her trailer, including the "switches, hinges and latches."
Photos: Courtesy The Local Branch
MADE TO GO: Do-it-yourself customization and personalized design is fundamental to the Airstream ethos. High-end adopters include handcrafters Mackenzie Edgerton and Blaine Vossler, whose web business, The Local Branch.co, is an artisan screen printing and leather goods studio run out of their traveling workshop/home, a 1979 Airstream. These before-and-after renovation photos show off their aesthetic, which includes a repurposed school locker, a bison skull and planters fashioned from aluminum gutters.
WHO'S YOUR DADDY: There are trailer parks, and then there are rooftop trailer parks. Well, at least one, anyway: It's in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Grand Daddy Hotel, an establishment that envisioned Airstreams as the ultimate rooms with a view. Or even as mirrors, reflecting the Table Mountain vista on their polished exteriors. This is how trendiness goes upscale: Seven vintage trailers are shipped across the Atlantic, hoisted to the roof and decorated in themes like "Bloomin' Daisies."
