Saskatoon family turns front yard into middle-earth paradise

A family in the City Park neighbourhood has turned their front lawn into a middle-earth inspired hobbit hole based off J.R.R Tolkien’s famous book “The Hobbit.”

Scott, Nathan, and Ann Marie Harder had the idea to transform their front lawn after they watched “The Hobbit” trilogy while in lockdown.

They were planning on doing something with their front yard, but transforming their yard into a scene from Tolkien’s book wasn’t their initial plan.

“It certainly evolved into something different because we had time to give it consideration and time to work on it,” said Scott Harder, who undertook becoming a carpenter during the pandemic, a different occupation compared to his usual job as a chiropractor.

The exterior of the Took hobbit hole. (Logan Stein/650 CKOM)

“We wanted to create some sort of perennial garden initially, it ended up turning into a hobbit hole after we watched the movies,” said Nathan Harder who has been working on the miniature home with his family for a little over two months. “We just kept filling all the spaces until they were full, at one point we had to walk away from it and let stuff grow in.”

Many hours were spent building this home for Lily and Raven Took, the imaginary residents of the home.

“Kids come and knock on the door all the time trying to talk to the hobbits, but the hobbits are pretty reclusive. They have been self-isolating,” Scott Harder said as he laughed.”All the kids in the neighbourhood love it. They write to the hobbits and leave them letters in the mailbox, they leave gifts too.”

The mailbox that kids in the community leave their letters in. (Logan Stein/650 CKOM)

The tenants of this new property might be imaginary, but the response from the community has been far from it.

“We have received letters from over a dozen kids,” Scott said. “The hobbits make sure to write back too.”

“It’s nice to see kids writing, especially letter-writing which is a lost art for many people.”

Letters written to Lily and Raven Took, tenants of the hobbit hole. (Logan Stein/650 CKOM)

The project was originally started a little over two months ago. The family added that it is done for the time being, but they might do more work in the future.

“It’s the finished idea for the last month, we have been watching it grow in and become established. There will still be a bit more to do eventually,” Nathan said.

People walking through the neighbourhood would stop and take a moment to admire the new home, which was just a hill of leftover soil months earlier.

“It’s certainly been a fun project to see the overwhelmingly positive response and feedback,” Scott said with a smile.

“If it makes people walk by with a smile then it was all worth it.”