There’s a real-life hobbit hole you can rent in North Carolina. Here’s a look inside
.jpg "Owner Trent Cherry said he never read or watched “The Lord of the Rings” before constructing a replica hobbit hole on his 27-acre farm with five treehouses.")
Trent Cherry has never seen or read “The Lord of the Rings,” and he has no idea who Bilbo Baggins is.
But that didn’t stop him from building a replica of Baggins’ house in The Shire — a full-blown hobbit hole for rent on his 27-acre farm in North Carolina.
“I’m not going to say I haven’t googled some pictures,” Cherry told McClatchy News on Tuesday. “But I couldn’t tell you for a million dollars what anything in the movie is about.”
Cherry runs the Cherry Treesort in China Grove, a haven of treehouses available for rent about 45 minutes northeast of Charlotte. The farm boasts five “mini houses” that are dozens of feet up in the trees, according to the website, and they’re all at least a few hundred feet apart — making the treehouses well-suited for a socially distanced vacation during the coronavirus pandemic, Cherry said.
“Lucy Lu’s Hobbit House” is the treesort’s newest addition, built into the ground instead of over it.
The houses of J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits — otherwise known as hobbit holes — are described at length in his children’s fantasy “The Hobbit,” a precursor to the three-part “Lord of the Rings” series.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” Tolkien wrote in the opening line of “The Hobbit.” “Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
He goes on to describe the house of the book’s title character, Baggins, as having “a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.”
Inside is a hallway shaped like a tunnel, tiled floors, polished chairs “and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats — the hobbit was fond of visitors,” Tolkien wrote.
Cherry isn’t sure how close “Lucy Lu’s” is to the real thing (he said he plans on going back and watching the movies now that it’s finished just to “see how close I got or didn’t get it”). But if the photographs and early reviews from Facebook fans are any indication, he nearly nailed it.
“I just wanted something different on the farm,” he told McClatchy News. “There are not many in the country that are legitimate hobbit houses that are done right that you can rent out.”
“Lucy Lu’s,” which is named after the family’s Yorkie, is roughly 400 square feet and built into a banked area near the water runoff at the treesort. Cherry said he and his builder “drew it on a piece of paper at lunch one day.”
The permits were a bit of a nightmare.
Cherry said they were told having a circular door as the main entryway to a house would be a violation of state building codes. His response? “I said, ‘It’s not a normal house — it’s a hobbit house.”
They had to compromise with a discrete, regular-shaped door that opens into the bedroom — “you’d never see the main door unless you’re looking for it,” Cherry said — in addition to the circular hobbit door at the front. The entire project was completed in eight weeks.
The door is blue — not green — with a wooden handle. It isn’t “in the exact middle,” but the door does look like a porthole, and there’s plenty of natural wood to make it feel like a hobbit’s dwelling. There are also round windows and circular archways inside, plus a a queen bed, pull-out sofa bed and full bathroom to accommodate up to four guests for $164 a night, according to the Airbnb listing.
After its opening night Friday, Cherry said “Lucy Lu’s” is booked solid for the next 11 days.
It helps that the farm is remote and social distancing is near effortless, making it an easy trip for local families looking for a quick getaway. Cherry and his family live a few miles down the road so visitors have their privacy, and he said a crew comes to clean and sanitize the treehouses and hobbit hole.
After five years of being open, the treesort has amassed a good following.
“Most people, if they’ve come once, they’ve come multiple times,” Cherry said.
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 1:37 PM with the headline "There’s a real-life hobbit hole you can rent in North Carolina. Here’s a look inside."
