Some of Don Denlinger's business brainstorms are reminiscent of the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams," in which an Iowa farmer hears a voice telling him, "If you build it, he will come."

For farmer Ray Kinsella, played by actor Kevin Costner, the dream was to build a baseball diamond, which in turn attracts a ghostly team of players to what had been a cornfield, followed by crowds of fans to watch them play.

In Denlinger's dream, a similar field became filled with old railroad cabooses, followed by tourists attracted to the novelty of being able to stay in them for the night.

As improbable as Denlinger's dream was, the Red Caboose Motel not only succeeded, but was also accompanied by other imaginative successes, such as the Fulton Steamboat Inn, that were just as improbable.

Those businesses still thrive under other owners, but Denlinger's days of turning his dreams into improbable realities are done.

Now fighting liver cancer, he struggles to rise from his sofa and cross the room to show a visitor his collection of scrapbooks and other mementos.

"It takes the life right out of you," he said of his illness.

One book is filled with clippings about the Red Caboose Motel, including pages from The Wall Street Journal and San Francisco Examiner, and a four-page color spread from Yoshikazu Aono, Japan's equivalent of Life magazine.

"We had more publicity than all the Hiltons and Holiday Inns put together because of the novelty of it," Denlinger said.

Youthful entrepreneur
Henry Benner, a childhood friend, said Denlinger had an entrepreneurial and inventive knack even as a boy, capturing baby turtles from the creek and selling them to his classmates, starting a business painting mailboxes and selling used cars in the early 1950s to his buddies in high school.

When Denlinger was 14 or 15, Benner said, he even tried to build a helicopter using the motor from his mother's washing machine attached to a homemade shaft and rotor.

When Denlinger started it up, it vibrated as if it might take off, but never did.

"My mother was in the kitchen praying it wouldn't," Denlinger said.

Denlinger's first notable venture as an adult was Mill Bridge Village, an old grain mill and house built in 1728 that he converted into a tourist attraction in the 1960s.

Denlinger was working as a salesman at Artist Emblem Co., his father's business, and borrowed the money from him to get started.

"I came to him and said, 'Dad, can you lend me 200,000 bucks?' " Denlinger recalled. "He said, 'What do you need the money for,' and I said, 'Nothing if you don't lend it to me.' "

His father, Milton E. Denlinger, was a well-known artist as well as a businessman, and his large steamboat mural is on display in the dining room at Steamboat Inn.

Sidetracked
Denlinger disclaims any special inspiration for starting the Red Caboose Motel, which he opened in 1970.

"I literally got railroaded into it," he said. "No one in their right mind would do that."

A friend of his had seen a notice that the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was in the midst of a merger, was offering 19 old cabooses for sale and suggested that Denlinger bid on them and put them in the campground at Mill Creek Village.

Denlinger said he sent in a minimal offer and was surprised six months later when the railroad notified him that he had been the successful bidder and the cabooses were being sent to Paradise.

"It kind of seemed like a good idea, but I didn't know if [people] would spend even a dollar to stay in a caboose, let alone what they pay now," Denlinger said.

Instead of trying to move the cabooses to Mill Bridge Village, Denlinger arranged a lease/purchase agreement for a parcel of farmland along the Strasburg Rail Road line, and had the cabooses delivered there.

Converting the cabooses into a motel turned into a lot of work.

"I was living on an adjoining farm and remember looking up and seeing Donnie with all those guys out there working," sometimes 16 hours a day, seven days a week, Benner said.

The first year the cabooses were open, he almost went broke, Denlinger said.

"Everyone who saw them said next year they would come and stay in a caboose," he said. And they did.

Before long, Denlinger was adding more cabooses, eventually more than doubling the original number.

"People would call me up and say, 'Hey, I'll give you a caboose if you'll just move it tomorrow, or in a week,' " he said.

Another brainstorm
A couple of years later, Denlinger had another idea for converting a piece of farmland that had come onto the market into a tourist lodging, which became the Historic Strasburg Inn.

"It was my idea," Denlinger said, "but that was something I wasn't into as much. I had so many other things going on."

Frank Kopfinger, a friend of Denlinger's who became a partner and the inn's general manager, recalls Denlinger calling him up to tell him that he had tied up the estate.

"He said, 'I think we should build a Marriott,' " Kopfinger said.

Kopfinger, who was working as an accountant for Penn Dairies at the time and had experience in the hotel industry, said Denlinger would often call on him for financial advice.

"We go back to the time he dreamed about buying Mill Bridge," he said.

Kopfinger said he usually tried to advise Denlinger against going ahead with his ideas, including this one.

This time, however, Denlinger told Kopfinger that he had already lined up a meeting of potential investors and was counting on him to give a presentation.

"People who knew Don knew he was one of those type of people who dreams things and then goes out and does them," Kopfinger said.

"We built it," he said, "but Don was only in it two years [before] he sold his stock and got out."

Kopfinger said he also left the business after a few years to manage the Hamilton Club.

New head of steam
Kopfinger said he had been at the Hamilton Club for a number of years when another of Denlinger's dreams again changed his life.

"I got another phone call from him saying we should build a steamboat along routes 30 and 896," Kopfinger said.

Denlinger said he had been struck by the thought of how much a puffing steamboat resembled a train.

"I thought what else has as much romantic appeal as a steam engine," he said. "Robert Fulton [who built the first commercially successful steamboat in 1807] was born and raised here. I just put the two together."

At first, Kopfinger said, he again tried to turn away Denlinger's overtures, eventually agreeing to join the venture and become the inn's first general manager after his wife, Dottie, suggested that a gift shop be included in the project for her to run.

The 97-room Steamboat Inn opened in 1990, and Kopfinger stayed on as its general manager until retiring about five years ago.

Denlinger had long since sold his interest in the business by then.

"When I sold the Steamboat, that's when I got into the volunteer work," Denlinger said.

Among his activities have been volunteering as a driver for Meals on Wheels and the American Cancer Society, and continuing his longtime involvement in the Paradise Lions Club, where he received a Melvin Jones Fellow award this summer.

Denlinger said the volunteer work has turned out to be the most enjoyable thing he's done in his life.

If he had known what he was getting into with all his projects, Denlinger said, he might not have been so eager to turn his dreams into reality.

"I don't think anyone else would be dumb enough to do what I did," he said.

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Dennis Larison is editor of the business section and can be reached by telephone at 291-8753 or by e-mail at dlarison@lnpnews.com.