Her Underground Dream Home Is Blowing Everyone's Mind

Hi, I'm Kim and this is my Hobbit house. I'm an interior designer and I have a specialty in custom window treatments, upholstery, and wallpaper. During COVID, I, just like anyone, you know, my life had been interrupted and I was jumping out of my skin. One day I reposted an episode of Zillow Gone Wild and in that listing there was the Wisconsin Hobbit house. Just like anybody else, I'm like, this is cool. Oh, this is really cool. Oh, this is really cool. Oh, this is for sale. I immediately contacted the realtor and she said, it's a long shot. It's, we've got 20 offers. And I said, but can I look at it? She said, if you're willing to make the drive, I'll make it happen. I stood in the space and I really couldn't believe it was real. And in 24 hours, our life changed. At no point did I think I was going to come home with a Hobbit house. I learned what an escalating bid was. 10 years later, that is one little piece of the puzzle of how we ended up winning the 20-way bid. $356,000 is what we paid. The home is just shy of 2,400 square feet. It has a large living room, kitchen, dining room, a laundry room, and then two bedroom suites. Welcome to the Wisconsin Hobbit house. What you're looking at here, come with me, is two Quonset huts. They've been placed on grade. One is higher than the other. The lower Quonset hut is the living room, kitchen, and dining room. The upper, both of the bedroom suites. Would you like to come on in? It's been surreal. When I was a kid, we went to visit the Xanadu homes and they no longer exist. And the Xanadu homes were very much like Wisconsin Hobbit home. They were experimental homes devoted to the study of what we would call home automation today and the exploration of the modern home, how your home can be integrated with your lifestyle in a way that is cohesive, not just a box to live in. And I remember this amorphous space that as a kid, you just want to jump around and play. And one day, I don't know, maybe in my 20s, I had a flashback and I was like, I remember this. It's like driving down the highway. And I called my dad and I'm like, what's this white house you brought us to? And he's like, oh, the Xanadu homes, you remember that? And I'm like, wow. So fast forward, I get on the phone with my sister and I'm like, you're not going to believe this. I'm about to buy the Xanadu houses. Like I'm in a Xanadu house right now. And it's been a ride. So it's been really fun. Through here is our living room. Watch your step. The home is just shy of 2,400 square feet at our highest point here. And our first skylight is about 20 feet to the top of the skylight. The home is actually a Quonset hut. So you have a series of steel culvers. Those culvers have then been sprayed with spray foam. And that's how you get the really interesting effect that looks like concrete. The floor is a poured aggregate concrete. Each room has a fireplace. And here we have the doors that lead out into our outdoor area. Outside we have a place for our guests to enjoy and take in the nature that surrounds the property. One of the most interesting things to experience about the Wisconsin Hobbit house is the expansive space and then the compression of space through smaller openings that then again open up into bigger openings. So here in the we have another skylight. And everything in the kitchen is built in and integrated as you'll also see repeatedly in this home. I have one more cool thing to show you. All of the lighting throughout the home is integrated into the architecture itself. And at night it is a sight to behold. All of these are original built-ins with storage for the entire home. The Wisconsin Hobbit house is located in River Falls, Wisconsin. It's a small college town in the Driftless region. And the home was built by two college professors who worked for the local university. They commissioned architect Michael McGuire. And he lives in nearby Stillwater. Michael McGuire was very inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. And you really see the mid-century modern influence throughout the home. So the relics of the home were passed down with the sale of the home. And inside were original blueprints that were the hand-drawn blueprints of the space. So what you're looking at here are the scanned images of hand-drawn floor plan. And you know they knew they're like, oh we're going to put some parking over here and walk up and enter here. And so these are Michael McGuire's drawings. Through this way is where the home connects through the wood construction hallway. So we're actually going up a level here. And we are now in the area that is not part of the two Quonset huts. This was, this area bridges the two Quonset huts and is where all of the mechanicals are stored in the home. Also a little surprise, come back this way is the coolest laundry room you've ever seen. So through this part here is one of my favorite architectural details of the home. You have these stalactites that go from the longest to the shortest. And again at nighttime it's absolutely incredible how they illuminate the space. Through this way we have both bedrooms. Right here is the main bedroom suite. We have a king bed, and I'm going to save the best for last, and a little lounge area here. Over this way we have these doors that lead to the outside and it puts you at eye level with nature and also allows for the cross ventilation in this space into the next bedroom suite. Over here we have our king bedroom suite and our bathroom. The finish material on this bathroom is more of the closed cell foam, so because it's an exterior finish material it's actually waterproof and can withstand showering. Through here is the second bedroom and again we've got a door to the exterior. A beautiful space to relax outside right out your bedroom. So this bedroom has a full-size window as well and I'll show you in a moment how we get the cross ventilation through both bedrooms. Here we have two more twin beds and a lounge area and up this way is everyone's favorite part of the home. We have a queen bed here and if you come this way you'll see one of the prettiest views of the home. We've got another skylight here that you wake up to the most architecturally interesting part of the home. This bathroom is nothing short of a surprise. I'm going to let you go in first. The Fibonacci sequence is found all over in nature including shells and seeds, even the inner structure of leaves, and it's just one more way that the architect integrated nature into this home. So this is the inside of the Hobbit home and follow me up to the roof. Over this way we're on the second level and through here, short ways, we'll be on the roof. So here we are up on the roof and one of the neat things is that this home is actually built into a bluff. The bluff right here is part of the Driftless region and that was a region of the Midwest that was spared by the glaciers and in turn is not as flat as the rest of the Great Plains. The Hobbit house has layer of soil and greenery all over the top. Because we're part of this beautiful forest system, it's not uncommon for deer and other wildlife to find their way onto the top of the roof and you do hear them from the inside. I designed the home to be a blank canvas. I didn't really entirely want to direct their experience here because I think there's people who are going to come here to find inspiration, to find peace, and to relax, but there may be people who are here to celebrate an anniversary and just have a unique experience or are architecture enthusiasts. So ultimately I just wanted the space to be something that was again a blank canvas for people to enjoy for a variety of reasons. I'm a world traveler and this is one of the few places that I can come over and over and wake up and I'm still enchanted. I mean I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I didn't build this. I am trying to honor this space and even I'm amazed. I've now owned it for three and a half years and it's a pleasure to get to steal a few days for myself and I wake up here and it's just paradise. This experience has blown my mind. It's been incredible to own this property and to be able to go through all of the various challenges and make it through to the other side. 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