Meet Rob Merrill | Owner/Builder Trailer Magic

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rob Merrill and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rob, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Our thought process was slow and evolving. We started out just as a hobby. We were happy doing the thing we loved to do, but mostly doing it for ourselves and our friends. We loved vintage trailers, built one for ourselves, helped some friends build the trailer of their dreams and it just sort of slowly evolved. Eventually strangers reached out to us to see if we would help them. Our builds started getting attention and we realized that there was a potential for a real business here. It has been a wonderful transition and growth, and we are still doing the thing we love to do.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Rob, the owner and builder at Trailer Magic grew up in rural Minnesota working in the family lumber mill. He worked as a finish carpenter for 20+ years and had the skills to rebuild, restore and reimagine these beautiful vintage trailers.
Mechelle, the co-owner and lead designer at Trailer Magic grew up in Los Angeles and has always had a love of all things mid-century and applies her design eye to restoring these little trailers to their glory.
Together they work to be as true to the era and year of the trailer while incorporating modern conveniences in the least noticeable and intrusive way. They prefer to choose trailers with lots of windows and always try to make the trailers as clean, open and light as possible.
Every trailer has a voice, and Trailer Magic works hard to find that authentic voice of the trailer and bring it back to it’s optimum beauty and functionality.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We live and work in Carson City, Nevada. Any friend of ours would be taken up to Lake Tahoe (20 minutes away) to look at one of the most beautiful alpine lakes in the world. We would also take them to Mangia Tutto Italian Restaurant for the best Pizza in Carson City! We would take them to Cheshire Cat Vintage and Antiques in Gardnerville, NV for some of our favorite vintage shopping and coming up at Christmas time, we would drive them by the Nevada Governor’s Mansion which is beautifully decorated for the holidays!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Trailer Magic would love to give some well deserved shoutouts to: Paul and Caroline Lacintinola of Vintage Camper Trailers. Their magazine and rallies have given us public exposure and a place to showcase our work. They have always been so supportive and helpful and we can’t thank them enough. Another well-deserved shout out goes to Roger Haas, metal fabricator extraordinaire! So often these vintage trailers need some serious work to make them road worthy again. Not just new frame and metal skin, but actually reinforcing the frame and building door frames, repairing window frames, building holding tanks and so many other one of a kind services. Lastly, we give a big shout out to our friend Joe Jordan. Joe is a friend of Trailer Magic and our biggest helper. He is so skilled at polishing aluminum, cleaning windows and has a fabulous design eye. It takes a village to restore a vintage trailer and we appreciate our village so much!

Website: https://trailermagicnevada.com

Facebook: Trailer Magic

Other: trailermagic@yahoo.com
(775)287-5318

Image Credits
Rob Merrill, Mechelle Merrill, Paul Lacintinola