Devine Columbia

The Challenge

Devine Columbia had built a thriving short-term rental management business entirely through word of mouth, growing from a single condo in 2019 to roughly 20 properties across downtown Columbia, SC, with a 4.9+ average rating and 6-7 consecutive years as an Airbnb Superhost. But the business had no website at all. The only link owner Kim Franklin could send a prospective guest was a generic booking-software page. Every reservation ran through Airbnb, which meant giving up roughly 18% of every booking to platform fees, with no way to showcase the brand, the properties, or the premium standard Kim had built her reputation on.

The Solution

CT Web Design Shop built Devine Columbia on a headless WordPress and Astro stack, giving Kim a boutique hospitality-style website that feels like a high-end lodging brand rather than a standard Airbnb listing page. WordPress runs entirely behind the scenes as the content backend, where Kim manages each property as its own listing with photos, amenities, and location details, while Astro statically generates the fast, image-heavy public site guests actually browse. A save in WordPress triggers an automatic rebuild and redeploy, so new or updated listings go live in minutes with no manual publishing step. The site integrates directly with Hospitable's booking widget so guests can browse and book any of the ~20 properties without going through Airbnb at all. Design followed a warm, cream-and-gray palette inspired by Kim's own references, built around the professional photography she already had on hand. The site highlights the trust signals that had only ever lived on Airbnb: Superhost status, 4.9+ ratings across every property, and the 'Guest Favorite' designation many listings carry. A property map ties every location back to what guests actually search for, walkable downtown Columbia, Williams-Brice Stadium, and Fort Jackson, which drives steady Tuesday-through-Thursday bookings from basic training graduations nearly every week of the year. Because listings live in WordPress as a repeatable content type, Kim can add properties and update photos herself as she scales from ~20 doors toward her goal of 40-50 without needing a rebuild.