The Weary Traveler Airbnb at the Weeping Glass embraces a “gloomy weirdo” aesthetic

For years, visitors to the Weeping Glass oddities shop in Allentown have been telling owner Kelly Braden how much they’d like to stay there for a night. With the opening of The Weary Traveler, an Airbnb rental by Braden that embraces the shop’s “gloomy weirdo” aesthetic, now they can.

The new space — located directly above the Weeping Glass — launched with a preview party on Oct. 18. Braden considers it to be a “beautiful extension” of the shop, and there was no skimping on spooky maximalist decor, she says, with vintage oddities, bizarre art, taxidermy, and all manner of trinkets decorating the two-bedroom, two-bath rental.

Weary Travelers ascend a dark wood staircase with painted gold script beckoning them to “Come Rest Your Bones.” Breezing past a wall of antique portraits and cabinet cards — all individually sourced by Braden — guests can luxuriate across two floors.

Bedrooms include a green-and-gold Dark Forest “comfort” room, centered around a mounted deer head to induce “deep forest sleep,” says Braden, and a low-lit celestial Alchemist’s Loft with tufted velvet cushions and a telescope.

Renters also enjoy access to a botanical-themed Poison Bathroom, a fully equipped Witch Kitchen — stocked with coffee from nearby Grim Wizard Coffee — and Braden’s favorite space, a Seance Room. Modeled after a fortune teller’s den, throne-like chairs surround a Oujia board table for conjurings and Tarot readings.

Braden says the inspiration for The Weary Traveler came from her own travels and from the building itself, which dates back to 1903. (While she won’t officially confirm any hauntings, guests take heed “there’s a lot of movement,” she says.)

“I know every time I’ve gotten to an Airbnb, it’s usually late at night. I’ve been traveling all day. [You’re] pretty weary at that point, and you are a weary traveler when you arrive,” Braden tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “So we want to kind of give it the feeling of an old boarding house.”

At the center of the The Weary Traveler is a parlor with two large velvet couches and some of the space’s most eye-catching oddities: an antique pump organ, original Andrew Fyfe infant anatomy drawings from 1794, and a cabinet stacked with Victorian boots, taxidermy snakes, and old dolls.

“Every room is its own little theme,” says Braden. Guests can also buy some of the local artwork dotting the walls, including hyperrealist paintings by Mike Schiavone and handcrafted nature pieces by Insect Mother.

At the preview party, Allentown residents stopped in, curious to see how the new space, under renovation since May, had turned out. Some hoped to book it for visiting friends.

“[Another] driving force behind this is there are not a lot of Airbnbs in this area,” Braden tells City Paper. When Weeping Glass visitors asked her where they could stay nearby, she previously pointed them to hotels on Mt. Washington or on the South Side.

But as Allentown undergoes something of a goth renaissance, Braden hopes to give guests a reason to stick closer and stop in at fellow “offbeat businesses” like metal gym Death Comes Lifting and Bottlerocket Social Hall (which also maintains an artist loft for overnight stays).

“We needed something in this neighborhood where it’s like, yes, stay here, eat here, go get a drink here, shop here,” Braden says. “It gives people a reason to come to the neighborhood and stay in the neighborhood, and because it’s a tourist attraction, hopefully it will bring some new people to the neighborhood as well.”

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