Magical Hobbit-Like Eco Cave House

Every now and then you can visit a place that just makes it feel like you've been thrust back in time and that's exactly the case with this next incredible earth house that we're about to visit. I can't wait to show you this one. G'day Graham. Hey, g'day. How's it going mate? Good, welcome. Welcome to Underhill. What an absolutely spectacular place. It's been a project of love over probably 40 years. Started off as a little swamp with a just a little stream running through it. It's a lovely centerpiece for this entire Underhill Valley. Absolutely. Now I can see that cave house over there just beckoning us. Can we go have a look? Please do. All right, let's check it out. When I left England I was about 17 years old and I spent three years traveling from England overland through Europe, North Africa, the Greek islands. I stayed in caves in Afghanistan and in Iran. During that period of time I stayed with some wonderful people and it was my life's education of course. I saw the opportunity to create something down here which would be very unique and very special and a lot of people talk about it and they think of it as a as an underground hobbit hole. I must say that when I first built the cave Peter Jackson probably wasn't heard of in that field. I mean already I'm amazed at just how well it fits into the mountainside. Yeah it just fits in as part of it and that's how it's designed of course, to be part of the entire valley. And there's steps curving around there as well so you can actually go up and get up and sit up on the top and of course the top is covered in grass. Yep. And we have the sheep in here every now and again just to keep everything down. Keep Oh my goodness. This is under hill. This is unbelievable. This is absolutely gorgeous. I do believe that people spend far too much energy and effort in creating huge dwellings that take a lot of heating and take a lot of looking after and cleaning and and paying for. So to have something like like this I think it's right for the soul, it's right for the heart, it's certainly very economical. It's like you're walking back into something that's been built for hundreds of years really. I was about to say it actually felt like I just took a step back in time. This is unbelievable. I mean the first thing that I notice is this roof. The pattern up here is gorgeous. It's amazing isn't it? How did you even do this? Well the whole structure was built by digging a hole in the ground open to the sky then we filled it up with sand and on top of the stand we put boulders from the Parongia mountain and smaller pebbles from the streams and then we poured concrete over the top and the concrete bonded the stones together and then we dug out the sand leaving the ceiling. That is so clever. Back in 1972 we'd be sitting here in this clay muddy cold area and I'd say one day this is going to be an amazing place where you can come down and stay and they go yeah dad yeah dad you'd never see it of course. Did you actually have to put these beams in place first then? Yes absolutely. Yeah and then you filled it all up with sand and everything else on the top? That's right. Wow what a great idea. And then dug the sand away. Yeah and in this back part here you can see we didn't use the stones that's just the natural sand. Yeah which also looks fantastic though doesn't it? Yeah absolutely. And then this is a just a skylight up here? A simple skylight yeah and it adds a large amount of light to the back of the cave. It certainly does. Right behind you of course the most important part is the wine cellar. I completely agree. And this opens up like this. Oh wow look at that and just how heavy everything is. This is incredible. Again everything made out of macrocarpa. Yeah. Everything is oiled which gives a beautiful smell. And of course being recessed into the earth like this I imagine the temperature in here is very stable right? Absolutely in wintertime and summertime it's 17 degrees all the time. Fantastic. So you can come down here on the coldest of days and it's 17 degrees and the hottest of days out there can be 28 or 30 degrees and it's 17 in here. So absolutely perfect for the wine. Perfect for the wine. Perfect for people too. Yeah very true. Very true. Really healthy. Yep. All right and so kitchen over here. The dresser again made with the big slabs of macrocarpa. These were made by a friend of mine that has a mobile blacksmith shop and travels around New Zealand. And I love the way that you've actually mixed all of the woodwork with the natural stone as well. It just makes it so rustic. Isn't it? It's beautiful. I mean one of the things I notice in this space is that everything feels real. Yes. You know I mean it's like it could be abused by vikings and be absolutely fine. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. A lot of attention to detail. Yeah absolutely. And of course we're actually by candlelight at the moment aren't we? So there's no electricity down here. None whatsoever no. Didn't want to have electricity. I felt it was a place where we could get away from everything. And I think that once you have electricity you're probably not going to get away from everything. You're not going to get away from your phones. You're not going to get away from the computer. And candlelight produces such a lovely glow during the day and in the evening. Yeah. But we have running water. We do. We've got hot and cold running water. And then we go we take that through the coal range. The coal range heats the water up in the old copper cylinder. So we've got hot and cold running water at the tap here. Brilliant and what a feature that coal range is. Isn't it? Isn't it spectacular? Built around about 1980. Yep. It's one of the few coal ranges that has got the option of having this open and opening this up and making it into an open fire. Right. And even a tap connected to it. And even a tap connected to it. So this this heats water within the coal range as well does it? Yes. Wonderful. And then this is the oven of course. Yeah. And we use this for cooking beautiful roasts of pork and lamb and it's just absolutely amazing. So all the cooking traditionally is done on this. Gorgeous. And I love the way that you're you've got the wood storage there as well. Yeah. So this is all like schist stone or what is this? Yeah this is schist stone and this came from some we brought this up from the South Island. So we were able to use these for the two benches. Wonderful. And I mean just the attention to detail with everything in here the incredible floor rugs. Yeah. And the floor as well. So actually how did you do the floor? Because this looks quite special as well. Yeah that was that's interesting that's got a little bit of schist as you'll see in the centre there. Yep. And then around here this was some caveat and we washed we washed the concrete off the top of that. Right. And just coloured this little piece just a little bit on the on the outside here. Right. So being recessed into a into a hillside as well how difficult was it to keep it watertight? Very important of course that's the most important thing. So we paid a lot of attention to that detail and we have we have a drain running right around the outside so that any of the water that comes onto the roof will go into the drain and out into the out into the pond. Right. And anything that comes down the inside of the wall between the clay and the wall that we see in the inside of the cave goes into another drain which runs the whole perimeter of the of the cave. Brilliant. And so sleeping area over there? Sleeping area. Beautiful beautiful bed. Yeah it's a really unusual shape. It is an unusual shape it's a lot wider in the centre. Yep. Narrow at the top and quite narrow at the bottom where your feet go. Sure. But it's an innersprung mattress and it has beautiful egyptian sheets on and it's one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in. I bet it just looks so incredible. Everything is just so rustic isn't it? I mean even the detail of the window and this is spectacular. Yeah that's a lovely little window and if you look closely you can give you a clue of where it came from. That is so cool. So it's an old car windscreen? It's an old car windscreen yeah. What an amazing space. And of course the windows we didn't stay with the traditional square windows we followed the shape of the cave and all of the windows were put in with a copper flashing so if there were any small amount of movement in the cave it would take up in the copper. Yeah. And not shatter the window. So I mean rounded windows rounded rooms in fact I actually think one of the things that stands out most to me about this is the fact that there are no square edges. That's right. Anywhere in here everything is an organic shape and it really actually just makes the whole space seem so much more serene for that doesn't it? Doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. There's no hard corners or anything. Yeah absolutely. Yeah yeah. Beautiful table. Wonderful for sitting 10 to 12 people around for a big roast. Yep I can imagine that. And a party. Absolutely. Beautiful. And then you've got the little romantic table there out on the jetty as well. Yes yes and lots of little places that you can sit around the pond. We've got a little petanque court over on the other side. Yeah. And so what about what about toilet and shower? Well let's have a look at the toilet and shower. We've built another cave. I was not expecting this. I mean first thing I noticed the bathtub. Wow. Yeah yeah an old cast iron bathtub. That is gorgeous. For one or two people. Yeah. In the stars out under the stars. Absolutely. Beautiful. Looks out over the pond. Beautiful setting. Yeah I mean every every which way you look is just gorgeous. Again the use of the stones. Yeah it all just looks absolutely magical. So this is the toilet in here then? This is the toilet. Right. It's a little eco toilet. Yep. And um very simple toilet. Yep. Works with sawdust from one bucket into the other bucket. The other bucket taken away put into a compost um then start again. Yep and actually I mean for all of the commercial composting toilet systems that I've seen I actually think it's really hard to beat the bucket system. I so do I. It's bulletproof. There's no odor. It works. That's right. Fantastically and now most importantly it takes what is most commonly perceived as a waste and turns it into a resource. That's right. Do you actually use it here on the farm? Yes yeah yeah yeah. So for fruit trees and that sort of thing? Yep yep for all the things up Brilliant. Fantastic. Yeah. Now this is another little cave that we built and you can see this beautiful big beam that we put through here. Oh yeah this is. To hold everything up. Amazing. So this is a macrocarper again or is this something else? No that's a hardwood. This is a hardwood right? That's a hardwood yeah. An Australian hardwood. It came out of a bridge. Right. Come on in this is um this is a wet area. Another little cave. Wow. Similar sort of use of um stone. Yeah. On the ceiling. Um a wonderful shower. Um gallons and gallons of hot water. Yeah. From a um from a Bosch gas hot water cylinder. Yeah. Candle light and um kerosene light. Lovely little stone basin. Yeah this is beautiful. And you can smell the oil in here. Another one of the big pieces of um that we've used down here. Yep. For the base of the shower. Wow. This is lovely. And I mean. No. Huge space. Huge space yeah. It's lovely. It's just wonderful. And a nice little window of course to see out and. Yep. Absolutely spectacular. And the llama's out there just to. That's right. Just to set the scene. And you've got the jetty over here as well. Nice little place to sit in the afternoon have a glass of wine. Yeah wonderful. Actually I went over the water a little bit. It was a dream. It was a dream um and it was a dream that I wanted to share with the family. And um a dream that's really come through. It's lovely. It's lovely that my daughter now is able to um run it as a as an exclusive and um interesting B&B. Um and she gets to meet lots of lovely people. And um sometimes I get to meet them too. And so the big question is I guess what did this cost you to build? I have no idea. Bryce I have no idea. It's just a labor of love so it didn't really matter. No it was a labor. It has been a labor of love. Um and there haven't been any records kept on how much it cost over the years. It's something that we put some money into it when we've had the money available. Yep. And um everything nothing has been dictated by the amount of money that it would cost. Yep. Um but on the other hand as you can see from using natural natural materials none of the materials are particularly expensive. So um yeah not a lot not too much money. Yeah. And not too little money. And I guess that is that is one of the things with natural construction isn't it? That that really the biggest expense when you're building with natural materials is actually the labor isn't it? That's right. And it's just the the time that you're able to put into it to construct it. Yeah absolutely absolutely. But never sacrifice anything. Um you know if we couldn't afford something we just lived a little bit longer until we could afford. We didn't put anything in that would replace it. Yep. If we used plastic of course it would last forever. Um but it wouldn't have the same ridiculous you know and we wouldn't have plastic down here. We wouldn't have anything down here that wasn't part of what should be here in the environment of what was created. Well in the 30 minutes that I've been here with you I already feel like I'm 20 years younger and have been thrown completely back in time. That's awesome. What you have created here is magical. Thank you so much for sharing it with me Graham. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Being able to visit a space like this is just such a treat for me. I mean it actually feels like it was grown by nature and not built by man. There really is something about all of the materials that have gone into the construction of this house and the way that it was all put together that just makes it feel so wonderfully organic. You can really tell how much love and creativity went into building this place. To be honest I actually feel really lucky just to be sitting here right now.