WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — Misty Smith said she has gone camping a few times at Red River Gorge, but something was always missing from her experience.
"I'm not the outdoorsy camper," she said. "I don't want to sleep on a cot on the floor. I want to have air conditioning."
Smith and three of her friends decided to provide that luxury camping experience right in their home state of Kentucky by creating Camp Bespoke, a "glampsite" located in Williamstown, Kentucky, outside Cincinnati.
When it is completed, Camp Bespoke will feature several "cabins" made from repurposed shipping containers along with Native American-style tents that will have all the amenities one might find at a hotel, including electricity, heating and air, and indoor plumbing.
"When I saw those go on the land, it was like an epiphany, like a dream come true," Smith, the "Chief Happiness Officer," said.
The project officially began in November 2019 as a partnership between Smith, Nicole Brassington, Angelina Strickland and Latasha Reid, four Black women who all work at the same hospital in Louisville.
"When we started this, we spoke to many banks and the banks initially had all been very supportive," Smith said.
"We already had our business plan," Strickland, the chief financial officer, said. "We already had the pre-approval for the loan. And then right as that was happening, COVID came into effect."
Smith and Strickland said while banks had been very excited about their project prior to the pandemic, it was a different story after the shutdowns started. They said banks had told them they would need to raise 20 percent of the $1.5 million project before they could get a loan, but after the entrepreneurs raised more than $400,000 using their own personal funds, they were told they needed to raise even more money. Smith said after they met those new benchmarks, the banks told them they needed to have been operating for at least six months before they could qualify for a loan.
"It was like somebody just turned the barrel upside down," she said. "They just figured the risk was too great."
The original plan before the pandemic was to open in June 2020, but that was pushed back to October 2020. After hitting roadblocks trying to get funding from the banks, Camp Bespoke pushed their opening date back to April 2021.
But the four women are now facing the possibility of seeing their dream come to an early end before they can even open. The women have invested more than $700,000 into the glampsite, installing electrical lines and plumbing, buying furniture, repurposing the storage containers into cabins and transporting them to the location.
But they now face a $65,000 bill to a contractor that is due February 21. According to Strickland, if they do not pay the bill by then, a lien will be placed on the property, which under their agreement with the landowner, would negate their contract and return the property, including all the changes, back to the original owner.
"We've come out of all the money that we can so that's why we've turned to our community and said, 'Okay, let's see if our village can help us. Let's see if our community can really help us,'" Strickland said.
With just days left, the women have turned to crowdfunding as a last-ditch effort to save their dreams, setting up a GoFundMe page to try to raise $65,000.
"We're at a point where we need someone to step in and help out," Strickland said.
