Collectors who go to great lengths to seek out rare items also want to make sure those pieces are not only protected from damage, but also displayed in such a way to show off that specialness. One man has taken that collector’s sensibility to a neat, albeit expensive, extreme, building an actual hobbit home for his J.R.R. Tolkien treasures.

CNN presents the story of homeowner Vince, who says he started collecting inadvertently at first, after reading the books in the early 1960s. He began with different editions of the books, and then moved on to figurines and other pieces representing characters and items from the stories.

When his Tolkien passion threatened to take over all the shelf space in his home, he decided hey, why not just build an entire house to showcase his vast collection?

“Here’s the idea, let’s build a hole in the ground where a hobbit could live, use it for the collection,” he said.

So he contacted an architect in early 2004 and went from there. The house uses stones from the property in the house, and even includes the round door and windows described by Tolkien and seen in various artists’ interpretations of those descriptions.

“You have to be a particular type of person to take to a house like this,” he says.

Check out the video below to see the hobbit hole for yourself:

A house fit for a Hobbit [CNN]

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