The Hobbit Houses in Los Angeles

Huddle three unusual cottages designed and built in the Storybook architectural style are built on Culver City’s Dunn Drive, just south of Venice Boulevard.

In front of the main cottage sits a large pond with a cement rim on which happy turtles sun themselves between swims.

The thick, rough-barked tree that leans over the water casts a bit of welcome shade and brings a sense of calm. This tree, along with the unpainted, wooden fence and the untamed foliage in the yard, gives the property a feeling of isolation.

The Hobbit Houses it carries a sense of otherness about it, as if comes from a different world although sit less than sixty feet from busy Venice Boulevard and across the street from an apartment building still under construction.

Lawrence Joseph, an expert carpenter, began construction The Hobbit Houses, in 1941 and worked on the property off and on until his death in 1991.

Joseph was employed by Disney Studio when he starts building the cottages, but later he took a job working on top secret aircraft designs at Lockheed’s Skunk-works.

The Storybook homes, with their shingled roofs, windows made by hundreds of small diamond panes, and wavy lack of right angles, resemble European country cottages built by troupes of drunken faeries.

The neighbourhood of Culver City in Los Angeles is known for the movie studios and the many trendy bars and restaurants that line its streets. There’s more to see here, though.

The Hobbit House is just one example of the city’s other attractions.