A Dream Hobbit Home for a ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fan
A New York construction supervisor and his family spend more than 6 years building this cozy, movie-inspired cottage
Costigan’s first project: a backyard hobbit shed. Photo by Jim Costigan
His first attempt involved a backyard shed behind his upstate New York home, a weekends-only project he started about 12 years ago and blogged about throughout the process. Once he completed that structure, shown here, he set his sights on something grander: an entire hobbit house. (The shed is now home to Costigan’s lawn tractor.)
His first attempt involved a backyard shed behind his upstate New York home, a weekends-only project he started about 12 years ago and blogged about throughout the process. Once he completed that structure, shown here, he set his sights on something grander: an entire hobbit house. (The shed is now home to Costigan’s lawn tractor.)
The house, which Costigan calls Hobbit Hollow, was supposed to take two or three years to build. More than six years later, Costigan is putting the finishing touches on Hobbit Hollow as he prepares to sell it to a fellow Lord of the Rings enthusiast — or just someone who appreciates an unusual barrel-vaulted ceiling and other imaginative details. A decision to build the house to Passive House standards stretched out the project’s timeline, but Costigan says he was committed to an energy-efficient approach.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom 1,500-square-foot home sits on 1.7 acres, next to a stream with a very Shire-like waterfall and pond in Pawling, New York. Costigan again spent weekends working on the concrete house, with help from his wife, Jodi, their daughter, Georgia, and their three sons, Ethan, Jude and Terence.
Instead of being completely nestled into a hillside like the house in the movie, Costigan’s house features windows in the front and back, and natural light from windows or skylights in every room except the guest bathroom.
Instead of being completely nestled into a hillside like the house in the movie, Costigan’s house features windows in the front and back, and natural light from windows or skylights in every room except the guest bathroom.
Energy-efficient details include thermal bridge-free construction that keeps heat from being lost or gained through weaknesses in the building’s insulation, triple-pane thermal windows, a heat recovery ventilator and a green roof with a bluestone patio.
“You really feel like you’re part of nature there,” Costigan says. “If you like to be outside in the woods or in a place that’s quiet, it’s unbelievable.… If you wanted to just sit up there and watch the insects flying around and birds, listen to the stream, it’s great.”
Bag End’s signature circular front door wasn’t possible to do according to Passive House standards, Costigan says, so he created a circular red frame to mask the rectangular door. He and his children “all read the books and we watched the movies a whole bunch of times,” he says. “We’re pretty much up on all things Lord of the Rings.”
Inside, Costigan and his kids channeled Middle Earth whimsy by imprinting different geometric shapes and patterns into the concrete ceilings and skylight borders.
A cylindrical hallway from the entryway to the main living area makes up for the faux-circle front door.
Other than kitchen cabinets, interior surfaces have been left largely unfinished so the next homeowners can decorate to their tastes.
There is at least one detail other Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate, though: A replica sword from the movies hangs over the electric stone fireplace in the living room, a gift to Costigan from his sons.
Tell us: What house from a movie or book would you love to live in? Have you patterned a room — or your entire house — after a favorite film? Tell us about it in the Comments.
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When Jim Costigan saw the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring years ago, he was blown away by Bag End, the tucked-away hobbit home. “I thought that was the coolest house I’d ever seen,” Costigan says. “Architecturally, I thought that that house in the movie was just really well-done, that it was really original. The curvatures, everything about it was unique.”
As Costigan works in high-rise construction in Manhattan, New York, and studied engineering, he wanted to see if he could re-create the charming little cottage himself.