Charming LA Hobbit House is on the market for the first time ever for $1.95M
A storybook home fit for Bilbo Baggins is on the market for the first time ever. The Tolkien-esque Culver City, California property is locally known as “The Hobbit House,” and it can be yours for $1.95 million.Its classical storybook architecture was painstakingly built over more than three decades by a former Disney artist as a labor of love.
The quirky compound, made up of nine dwellings, looks adorably out of place among the high-rises, parking lots and highways of Culver City.Chris Huddleston of The Sher Group holds the listing, which was first reported by Mansion Global.Uneven, sloping roof shingles and chunky, hodge-podge stone walls adorn all five buildings on the quarter-acre property.Cathedral-vaulted ceilings, hand-carved furniture and leaded windows add to the property’s fairytale charms. The fantasy-revival property even boasts a lack of doorknobs or few 90-degree angles.The compound includes 10 bedrooms and nine bathrooms, with interiors that look like the home of a Scottish sea captain.
Renters at the “Hobbit House” live among galley-esque kitchens, use ropes instead of door handles and enjoy other nautical touches. There’s also a pond and a pub-style bar well-suited for weary travelers and whimsical creatures.The property was designed and built by Disney artist Lawrence Joseph.Joseph chipped away at the passion project from the 1940s through the 1970s.
He eventually redesigned the property as a multifamily residence, and kept refining it until his death in 1991, according to Mansion Global. Joseph, a skilled carpenter and sailor, briefly worked as at Disney before moving onto classified projects at the Lockheed aerospace company.His wife, Martha, was a secretary to the stars, including Rock Hudson and Alfred Hitchcock. Joseph’s compound was declared a historic cultural monument by the City of Los Angeles in 1996, and Martha placed the property into a trust before her death in 2004.It’s not all a total fantasy land – actual r...