Couple Built Magical Hobbit Village In Rural Mountaintop [Video]

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In 1958, James and Anne Hubbell bought cheap land in the Cuyamaca Mountains east of San Diego to build a home with their own hands using materials from the land. Over the next several decades, they built a cluster of tiny homes across the property to accommodate their growing family and working needs. Using only shovels, they dug into the hillside, using existing boulders as footings and wood milled on the property. Modeled after nature, the shelters seem to grow from the land with curving walls reminiscent of seashells. “There are no straight lines in the Hubbell Universe,” explains Hubbell Foundation director Marianne Gerdes.

source.image: Kirsten Dirksen

When they outgrew their original one-room adobe cabin, they built a kitchen/living room as an independent structure, connected by a courtyard to a new bedroom space. This outdoor connection between the two parts of the home forced them to step outside, even during a snowy winter, …