Would you like to live in a house inspired by the movie The Hobbit? Well someone does..READ ON..
CHESTER COUNTY, Pa. (AP) — Worlds away from the Shire, a stone cottage tucked into the Pennsylvania countryside would make Bilbo Baggins feel like he was back home with his Hobbit friends in Middle-earth.
This Hobbit house belongs to a lifelong fan of
author J.R.R. Tolkien. The 600-square foot building is a short walk from his main house, on a flat stone path and through an English-style garden. They used stones taken from a
long-collapsed section of an 18th-century low wall running through the
center of the 16-acre property.
"We weren't going to do a
Hollywood interpretation. We wanted it to be timeless," architect Peter Archer said. "It
was built in 2004 but looking at it, you could think it was from 1904,
or 1604."
The 54-inch diameter Spanish
cedar door — naturally with a knob right in the center just as Tolkien
described — opens with a single hand-forged iron hinge. Several
craftsmen said they couldn't hang the 150-pound door on one hinge but a
Maryland blacksmith "succeeded on the first try," Archer said.
A Delaware cabinet-maker built
the mahogany windows, including the large arched "butterfly window" —
its Art Nouveau-ish flourishes inspired by Tolkien's own drawings. The roof is covered with clay tiles
handmade in France.
Inside the small dwelling are
curved arches and rafters of Douglas fir, a fireplace finished in stucco
and accented with thin slices of clay tile, and plenty of shelves and
ledges for the owner's library and displays of Hobbit figurines,
Gandalf's staff, hooded capes, chess sets, chalices — and of course, The
One Ring. The rustic structure cleverly hides its thoroughly modern
heating, cooling, electrical and security systems.
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