Part Hobbit, part dwarf and with a magical inspiration that is all Gandalf, Joe Thompson has constructed a refuge for the best of J.R.R. Tolkien’s peoples and those who love them.
Deep in suburban Colwood, at a secret location, Thompson has created a stone Hobbit’s house with round windows and a rounded wooden door that makes a head-duck a must even for those of average height.
The entire abode is surrounded and inhabited by a menagerie of carved faces, concrete statues and natural oddities such as unusually shaped trees and oddly coloured stones. A sign out front reads: “Nature’s Art and Rock Bottom Hobbit Studio.”
“It’s all about nature and an explosion of my own creativity,” said Thompson, 63.
A stone mason by vocation, Thompson has built his Hobbit house with 120 tonnes of stone, most of it river rock found on Vancouver Island. A few pieces were imported from Colorado and Utah to add a variety of colour.
It’s held together with 280 bags of cement and about $9,000 worth of structural steel. All told, there is about $90,000 worth of materials, Thompson said.
It also contains a lot of good-heartedness, insisted Thompson, since so much of the work was assisted by tradespeople friends.
And every step of it was approved with permits from the municipality. One day, when the home is fully plumbed and fitted with a shower and heaters, it will be a guest house, perhaps even a bed and breakfast.
Thompson, at five-foot-six and 240 muscular pounds, sees stone work as a kind of meditation — extremely hard work but very therapeutic.
He even sees himself as a little bit Hobbit and a little bit dwarf. But his heart and mind will forever belong to Gandalf, the wizard who was such a key character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit.
“I love Gandalf. A wizard is never late, he always arrives precisely when he is needed,” said Thompson, reciting a line from the first movie. “I just love that.”
For now, Thompson wants the address kept secret because he is fearful of attracting too many people, even though more than 1,000 have seen it.
Thompson grew up in an orphanage in Timmins, Ont., and was not adopted until he was past 11 by “a wonderful family.”
In a storybook moment, he was reunited with his birth mother in 1995. The woman has since died, but not before the two became friends and brought closure for each other.
Thompson said growing up in an orphanage meant he didn’t develop much of a taste for books. So it was the three Lord of the Rings movies, directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson, that gave him the inspiration.
The original idea for the Hobbit house came to him in 2005 while he was enjoying a beer with another stone mason.
“My friend went: ‘Is that ever cool but, Holy mackerel, what a lot of work.’ ”
Thompson’s wife of 35 years was somewhat less enthusiastic.
“I had a hard time because I didn’t think the property was big enough,” his wife Barbara said.
But now that it’s almost completed, “It’s beautiful, really beautiful,” she said. “It sort of blends into the landscape and looks like it’s been there forever.”
Thompson has been working as a stone mason for more than 30 years, but he apprenticed as a chef. He worked in hotels, restaurants and work camps. His last jobs at the Oak Bay Marina ended after three years. The hours and the fast-paced pressure of professional kitchens had lost their attraction.
“When I was a chef, I would make a spectacular buffet with all kinds of creations, then somebody would come in and stir it up in five minutes,” he said.
“But not the Hobbit house. Mother Nature is going to have to come in with an earthquake to destroy it.”
video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzBsXYRoSwQ
To view Thompson and his work go online to YouTube: Hobbit Studio Shaw TV Victoria.
