ADVENTURE HEROINE
CAROLINE BOONE ’09 WANTED A NEW challenge. An equestrian since age 5, she had been showing the same American Saddlebred horse for five years. The synch she had in the saddle with Juno led to many blue ribbons up and down the West Coast and a couple of appearances at the World Championships.
“I love this horse. He’s amazing, but it’s just not a challenge anymore. I wanted to do something I was bad at. I wanted to learn something new,” she says, adding that her new horse, Goose, a 2-year-old five-gaited prospect, is a handful. “I guess I’m just doing that in other facets of my life, too.”
In April 2024, Boone became a Disney Imagineer in Glendale, Calif., working on Storyliving by Disney communities. Designed with guidance from Disney Imagineers and built in collaboration with experienced developers and homebuilders, these neighborhoods, blend local culture with Disney themes, promising a unique living experience. Two are in development, one in California and the other near Raleigh, N.C.
“The level of thoughtfulness and narrative that goes into the designs of these communities is really beautiful,” says Boone. “It combines both the story of the location with a thread that is uniquely Disney and just brings that all together into a story that is infused into every single detail of the community – the amenities, the restaurants, the names of the streets, the designs of the homes.”
Boone’s own life has a bit of a storybook quality to it, appropriately. Raised on a 530-acre working farm in Kentucky that had been in her family for generations, she had planned on staying in state for college, but when she found out her friends were going to schools all over the country, she rethought her decision and looked for schools with application deadlines still open.
“A last-minute trip to see CofC confirmed that it was exactly where I needed to be,” she says. “It was the best impromptu decision I’ve ever made.
“The College set me up for every decision that I’ve made after graduation,” adds Boone, who majored in communication. “It’s not just what I learned from the teachers; it’s what I was exposed to outside of the classes, the level of culture and independence of thinking that just comes with a city that is as intellectually rich as Charleston.”
Working in student media, the George Street Observer and the radio station also sparked her career trajectory, which began when Stella French ’04, who worked at a little startup called Airbnb, told her, “Get your foot in the door; this is going to be a rocket ship.”
Boone was a little dubious about this whole renting out your apartment thing, but she moved to San Francisco in 2012 after a year of working remotely for the company. She spent the last 10 years prototyping, launching and scaling the company’s second business, Airbnb Experiences, which allowed her to try experiences all over the world.
Her favorite was the one she did on her honeymoon in 2016. On their way to Bali, the newlyweds stopped in Seoul, South Korea, to explore the country her husband’s family is from, though he’d never been before. Boone booked an experience with a Korean “b-boy” (breakdancer), who took them out for a night on the town.
“He took us out places that we never, ever in a million years would have been able to find on our own,” says Boone. “It was one of the best nights of our lives – just seeing my husband connect with a part of his culture that he had never been able to experience before in his life.”
No doubt Boone will pull from her enriching past experiences to create a new kind of Disney magic for future Storyliving by Disney residents.