The Hobbit House

Some homes look like they were drawn by hand. This one looks like it was dreamed.  Tucked between pines and winding roads in Eliot, Maine, just miles from the salty edge of the Atlantic, there’s a house that doesn’t fit the mold—because it was never meant to.  Curved like a hillside, wrapped in weathered cedar shingles and whimsy, the so-called Hobbit House doesn’t rise so much as it emerges—as if it simply grew out of the ground when no one was looking. It’s not a replica. It’s not a novelty. It’s a living, breathing home, built with intention, imagination, and a love for the offbeat.

Designed and built in the 1970s by a pair of artists and free-thinkers, the house was never meant to impress. It was meant to delight. With no sharp corners, no towering walls, and no traditional roofline, it flows like a song—low, warm, and full of curves. The kind of place you’d expect to find in a fairytale—or buried deep in the Shire.

At over 4,000 square feet, it’s hardly a cottage. But it wears its space like a well-made coat—soft, unusual, and perfectly fitted to its landscape. Inside, sunlight spills across hand-tiled floors and arching doorways. Ceilings dip and rise with rhythm. A round window catches the breeze. There’s no wasted space—only quiet nooks and thoughtful corners.

For decades, the house stood as a local curiosity—admired, whispered about, photographed from a distance. A secret, shared in stories.  Then, in 2023, new owners stepped in—not to flip it, not to change it—but to love it. Carefully, respectfully, they updated what needed updating. Plumbing. Paint. A bit of polish. But the soul? That stayed untouched.

Now, the Hobbit House is lived in once again—not as a showpiece, but as a home. A place where people eat, laugh, read by the fire, and wake to birdsong. It’s still unconventional. Still enchanting. Still unlike anything else in Maine.  And that’s the point.

Some houses are built to match a blueprint. Others are built to match a dream. This one is the latter—a curved celebration of creativity, tucked into the trees. A reminder that even in New England, where clapboard colonials and saltboxes reign, there’s room for something softer. Stranger. Kinder.  A house like this doesn’t ask to be understood. It asks to be felt. And remembered.  Because once you see it—you don’t forget.