CNN Money recently did a story on Vince Donovan, a man who had a hobbit house built to house his vast Tolkien collection…and I’m pretty sure everyone who watches the video will want one.
Donovan described himself as an “inadvertent” collector who got started after reading the Tolkien’s books in the 1960s. “I started collecting different editions of the books that were published, then started to get some collectibles, principally figurines that depicted Tolkien characters—different people’s interpretations,” he said. “The collection started to grow over the years; pretty soon it was taking over quite a bit of the shelf space in the house.”
Donovan and his wife came to the conclusion that they needed a unique space to house their collection. They spoke to designers from the Archer and Buchanan Architecture firm and said “Here’s our idea: we want to build a hole in the ground where a hobbit could live and use that for our collection.”
“We started the project with the first drawings in early 2004,” Donovan explained. “Peter and Mark, the two architects who listened to me, started to absorb my ideas of it. They spent a lot of time researching it; they took a lot of the books out of the library and reviewed them, looked at pictures, looked at other artists’ interpretations of Tolkien, read his descriptions of land, and kept a lot of good ideas on their own to bring that together to the house.”
An unorthodox project like this meant a few obstacles had to be overcome. Donovan said, “Probably the largest challenge they had was the door. Most people said, ‘You can’t do that. You have to have a straight side some place so we can put a hinge.’ But an ironworker who came to look at it said, ‘Nope, I can build something like that,’ and he went back to his forge and created a very strong hinge which is just a highlight of the house.”
Make sure to watch the video and just revel in the Donovans’ vast collection. I’ve decided that my favorite detail is the different sized cloaks hanging on pegs just inside the front door. Vince Donovan said, “You have to be a particular type of person to take a house like this,” and I guess I’m one of those people!
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