Hobbit House

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. And in Chester County, Pennsylvania, there lived a lucky man who built his own hobbit house. He hired architect Peter Archer to build the 600-square-foot guest building near his home as a storage and display repository for his J.R.R. Tolkien memorabilia. Yes, this guy has an awesome hobbit house in his 16-acre yard just to store his Tolkien collection. The house was built using stones from a collapsed 18th-century wall running through the property, with additional features custom-built to match Tolkien’s drawings.

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. The rustic structure cleverly hides its thoroughly modern heating, cooling, electrical and security systems.

http://www.archerbuchanan.com/portfolio.asp?isection=3