Alpine Volks Fair Lodging: The Obsessed Garage House

If you’re going to spend the better part of a week in Helen, Georgia doing car things as part of the Alpine Volks Fair, why not check even more boxes off your bucket list by booking the Obsessed Garage house?

By: Ray Reyes

For those unaware, Obsessed Garage (OG) isn’t just a Facebook Group or a Youtube channel, it’s also a movement of like-minded automotive enthusiasts who see the garage as ground zero of the car enthusiast hobby. Combine next-level focus on organization, including automotive detailing, and you get the idea. It all started with a vision by founder, Matt Moreman, to share his fixation with a nearly limitless supply of online friends, and its latest embodiment is the home you see here.

For any car enthusiast, this home is the ultimate getaway, but let’s start from the beginning. Helen Georgia is a bustling Bavarian Alpine Village in White County, Georgia.  Once home to Cherokee native Americans according to town history, it evolved into a logging town in the early 1900s.  As that industry lost its momentum, the townsfolks had the vision to transform the city into a German-inspired village… only located in the heart of the Georgia Mountains rather than the Alps.

Like the town of Helen, Destination Obsessed Garage was also a vision, but here the vision of one person. Obsessed Garage founder, Matt Moreman, came up with the idea while traveling through the region with friends back in 2015.

The idea was for Matt and some friends to purchase a house in Helen and create their own community. He wanted a house nestled in the mountains with a great couch and a comfortable place to wash his car.  The goal was to live a mountain lifestyle, going there when he sought to get away from the craziness of the daily grind. As the idea progressed, he imagined renting the house to like-minded individuals. He wanted a space where car enthusiasts could all enjoy comradery and obsess over cars and detailing within a home environment.

After a thorough search, he centered on the five bedroom / five bathroom domicile you see here. Not surprisingly if you follow Obsessed Garage, he quickly set about outfitting the home to closely mirror his own home or facilities often seen in his videos. Of course that applied to his broad detailing product line, cabinets and favorite tools, but it also expanded to sound systems, kitchen organization and even plates and implements. Living the “obsessed” lifestyle like Matt while staying in the home is entirely the point.

For Alpine Volks Fair, Peter Lumen from the WhatsApp RS 6 group suggested renting the OG house.  Another group member Tristan Bandoni didn’t hesitate and in October 2023, quickly booked it for the week of AVF.  But, just because we booked the house doesn’t mean we could rent it, since there is an interview process to make sure the property rules are understood. There is also an occupancy limit of eight cars and ten people. Like any other rental property, tenants are fully liable for any damages.  Reservations are 100% refundable until two weeks before the reservation date.  

Tristan created a Helen chat, and as the group of guests began to coalesce, we chatted about the property every day and reviewed online videos and photos carefully.  As obsessed as Matt Moreman is, it’s not surprising he had already taken the time to illustrate how to properly use all the products and tools available in the garage. Before anyone arrived at the house, we all knew the rules of operation and made sure every item used was put back in its proper location.  The house is in a gated community, so everyone involved had to provide their full name and model car they planned to park at the property. We were allowed guests, but they could not sleep in the house.

Arriving at the main gate of the house was a spectacle. We knew the house was special, but no one was prepared for the real thing. Upon arrival, we tried to locate a parking spot before opening the double doors to the garage and parking many of the cars in the garage. Inside, presented a lavish lodge-style atmosphere including a large kitchen and living area. With comfortable bedrooms, a sauna and jacuzzi, all the amenities would make for an excellent temporary abode. And while the giant glass windows would blend in the nearby trees, the giant garage stocked with detailing equipment and tools, and a $50,000 racing simulator were the perfect home accessories for those focused on a few days’ vacation at AVF.

As we closed out the week, we discussed our impressions of the OG house. Of course, the garage was on the top of the list for everyone since we could wash our cars indoors. Many mentioned the comfortable beds and appointments. For me, being a technician at heart, access to all the cabinets filled with tools was a definite highlight. Whatever our favorites were, there’s no doubt that the  Obsessed Garage house was a hit with everyone. It was so much so that before this article is published, someone may have already booked the house for the same week as AVF. Nevertheless, there are a lot of reasons to go to Helen, GA, and we’d argue you can’t do it much better than by booking the Obsessed Garage house.