ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

You are here: Home / Blog / Lord of The Rings in Oregon
NEVER MISS A BOOK RELEASE

Join 30,000 Subscribers

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
PUBLISHING NEWS

New book releases, give-aways, and appearances.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
BLOG UPDATES

Free fiction, snippets, and funny stories.

Read our Privacy Policy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. If only I had 6 million dollars to buy my own hobbit home. Finally then I can justify eating 7 meals a day. Mmmmm, elevensies, afternoon tea, dinner, supper…

  4. this one’s a hit for me. and they definitely paid a lighting professional to do the exterior lighting. I love how this house both fits in with the hill side (surprise! it’s super big from the back!) and stands out by being definitetively man made. the curves blend it into the surrounds, but looking through the photos I don’t get the sense of wrongness I often do from curved houses. I also love the whimsy throughout. no desire to move to the hills of Oregon, but it is gorgeous.

  5. 708 acres! A gazebo for the pool!! I fell in love with it with the exception of the rug in the bathroom. But if I had 6mil I could easily put in heated tile 😉

  7. Well, it doesn’t have a moat… Other than that, dayum. I want.

    I would have kept the theme going and had the trees’ roots in the basement. Or better yet, have a root cellar. 😛

  8. Just popping out to buy my lottery ticket! Fingers crossed I’ll be moving to Oregan shortly! 😂

    • In the UK at least, it seems to be a generational thing. Many a grandparent home I visited had this and it made me so self conscious to have a shower or bath there!

      • My grandparents in Oklahoma & Kansas had carpet in the bathrooms as well….definitely a generational idea….

      • My parents had carpet in the downstairs bathroom that I used. Problem was that it was an interior bathroom with no windows, so if we didn’t run the fan long enough or keep the doors open when not in use, then the dark and damp conditions occasionally resulted in little mushrooms growing out of the carpet.

        • Mushrooms?!!🫣

          My first question is how’d the spores get there?!

          I going to reread HA’s Heroes, lol.

      • Hopefully there are no small children being potty trained, or big adults who don’t miss the toilet. 😬

      • Any number of anti-slip coatings, silicone mats, adhesive non-slip stickers or wet-room floor design could come before fibre carpet that grows mould!

        • Grows mould plus rots the wooden beam beneath. The load bearingbeam. Of a bathroom on the second floor. True story…

    • I have carpet in bathroom bc I live in Massachusetts in an antique house. It’s nice in winter for warmth… cats like to sprawl in front of the heater after they hang out on the shower lip

  10. Yes yes yes!!! This one! I want this one!!

    Our whole family went to the Ren Faire this weekend in costumes that would fit right in here. Well, maybe not the pirate.

  12. My precious!! If I had 6 mil it would totally be mine – after ripping out the carpet in the bathroom – why would anyone do that?!? Heated tile floors, heated towel rack. People would have to come visit cuz I’d never ever leave the property again!

  13. Thank you Ilona for sharing this masterpiece of a house. I have a friend who works for a custom home builder and I sent the link to her and her boss. They would truly appreciate all the work that went into bringing this house into reality.

    What a blessing to be able to afford such a living piece of fantasy!

  14. I have been to Ashland, Oregon many times and would expect to find this house there. Ashland is the permanent home of the Oregon Shakespear Festival. It is a community filled with so many cool and unique galleries, shops, restaurants and open-air performances. It’s amazing.

    • Yes, except now those of us who grew up in Ashland have been priced out of living in our home town. It’s not as cool anymore since the people who created that environment can no longer afford to be there! No, not bitter.at.all

  15. Wow, its really beautiful. All the wood work is so cool!

    But why 11,000 square feet and only 2 bedrooms? Who’s using all that living space?

    Plus “Centrally located” in the middle of nowhere.

    Then again, it is a fantasy house, literally. They put so much work into every aspect I wonder why they’re selling?

    • I literally only saw 1 bedroom. the other is the ‘guest house’ I assume. literally in the last 2 pictures. o.O

    • The one bedroom in the blog’s pics looks like it accounts for 1500 sq. ft. right there.

  17. Ooo, Ashland! Oregon Shakespeare Festival! 708 acres I imagine guarantees no neighbors 🙂 but… Centrally located means equidistant between SF and Portland so plan no day trips if your private plane is in the shop. Also a lovely view of the wild fires in the summer 😉

    • Okay sorry to be a Debbie Downer today. I’m jealous of anyone who can afford this fantastic place, and also my hip hurts (poor, poor me 😆)

  18. I grew up in the mountains, and generally think mountains are overrated, but the views from this house and lovely. And the woodwork is awesome.

    • As long as you don’t have cows looking in when you’re in the bathroom sitting on the toilet with the door open, it’s not a big deal, when that happens you ask yourself, “how good is the vision on cows?”

  28. My gosh, those views. My sister would kill for that house (if I had $6M to spend on a house, I would make sure there were ocean views*). I figure if the right half** of my siblings got together, and cut their spending to the bone, they’d be able to finance it for her.
    __
    *although my real estate pr0n always starts in Sedona, AZ, so maybe I would be ok with no ocean, as long as there were seas of red rock
    **I’m definitely the left half

  29. It is beautiful, but I wonder if I could live with all of those windows in a part of the world where it’s cloudy 300 days a year. Might get depressing. Can’t shut it out….

  30. How I know that I’m…my age : my thought process went “very pretty…sooo pretty…how TF much energy do you need to heat/cool those spaces? Also those window frames *don’t* look like triple glass”
    Eh. I have become one of those age-memes.

    • I had the same thought about those custom windows in the bedroom, the ones shaped like the tree trunk/limbs. If anything happened to that window, the cost to replace it would be really expensive.

  32. Honestly, this is a place I would love to stay but not somewhere I’d want to live long term. Mostly because it is too specifically itself. There is no space for my changeable personality.

    For years I have changed the inside of my house every solstice and equinox. I move furniture around and change the covers/throws. I put up different pictures, curtains, rugs, tchotchkes. That would be impossible in this house.

    (Also, it would take forever in a house this size. It already takes about 3 days in the small house I have now.)

  33. I wants the precious!!!
    Knowing my luck after I won the lottery and bought it wildfire would come through and burn it. But sooo pretty.

  34. The views alone are worth a couple million. And the woodwork! Especially that floor. I wants it, my precioussss, and I don’t say that about most of the houses I see online.

    Granted, if it’s in the middle of 700+ acres, it’s probably a good half mile to the nearest road. You would need to stock up for winter, and have a nice garage for your clearing equipment because if EMS needs to get to you, you want that to happen.

    • I think I might be in the minority but I’m not a fan of the streaky wood flooring. Either put it everywhere (especially the kitchen, the kitchen feels like someone lost inspiration), and maybe better yet, make it less shiny and less multicoloured streaky.

      • I too felt like the kitchen was lacking in the whimsy that I loved from the entrance. Made me wonder if it was a compromise between owners. Like the main cook didn’t really want an that in a house, but the other did, so they said the kitchen could be plain? 🤷‍♀️

      • It’s definitely a matter of personal taste. I’m a huge fan of wood inlays in furniture, and I love the sensation of flow that floor gives. The craftsmanship is also impressive, at least as far as the pics can show. Someone who prefers a more streamlined look is not going to like it though. The industrial-chic houses that lots of people love, with metal staircases and bare floors, usually look too cold and unwelcoming for me. I can appreciate the aesthetic, but wouldn’t want to live with it.

  35. I love, love, love it! It’s incredibly!

    My one and only issue, why Americans do not fence their properties? I get the size of the land but a portion could be fenced, no? Where do you guys let your dogs out? – I do go on two walks a day, on and off leash, but my dogs love my garden anyway and I feel safe with the fact that they won’t get into any serious trouble in it. What if you are out and about, in your own garden and someone out on a walk passes through? Are the distances really vast enough for it to be irrelevant?

    • Also not an American. And my immediate follow up would be: sure, how you keep your dogs in matters, but how you keep the actual wildlife out matters more 🙈 I mean, yonder side of the pond still has actual predators and stuff, unlike the glorified parkland my fellow countryfolks call nature 😂

      • I’m from Poland and live in the countryside. No big predators but we do have a lot of wildlife: foxes, wild boars, does (a lot), hares (also a lot), weasels, birds big and small (cranes, storks) etc.. They generally avoid humans and close proximity to human homes, especially where there are cats and dogs. Mine are mostly at home so despite two biggish dogs and three cats I still get mice in the garage :-/. There are places where boars are a problem but thankfully not here. In wilder areas I wouldn’t mind wolves but bears do sometimes go close to homes. I would not want a bear anywhere near my dogs! A fence is a must, I mean with a land this big I would want at least 10’000 m2 fenced.

    • This is in the woods, so you get more wildlife stuck in your fence than you would believe. Most of our dogs are trained to go off leash around here 🙂

    • I grew up on a farm in the USA and we had fenced land for cattle, horses, and pigs but that didn’t keep wild critters out of the front yard, garden, and house sometimes. The dogs lived outside and were not leashed. If you have enough acres then they are still on your land even if they wander a bit and ours usually stayed close to where they were fed. There were no neighbors within sight and, as a kid, it was an awesome place to grow up as there were acres to explore.

    • American here. Many Americans do fence their properties, if they have a reason to. If the house is in the middle of 700+ acres, it’s half a mile from the road (640 acres being a square mile). Even if it’s not, Private Property and No Trespassing signs around the perimeter of the property are very American in rural areas. They will have additional wording to clarify what activities are allowed if it’s just a Private Property notice. The hunt club timber tract behind me only reminds people about preventing forest fires. In any case, no one is likely to stumble on that house by accident.

      That far from a road, if the dogs are big enough, they may just let them run. If not that big, they may only allow the dogs out when humans are supervising. Or it’s possible there’s a fenced area for the dogs under tree cover that the camera avoided; looking at the aerial shots, there are many items on the property that aren’t documented in the photographs. Or they may not have outdoor pets, or they may believe nothing bad can happen to someone as special as they are until it happens. They do have a small fenced area with those impressive gates, which would do for a dog to hang out. Presumably it would bark at approaching wildlife.

      If their primary purpose for the property is to act as an environmental area or wildlife refuge, they will fence very little of it. Yes, my backyard is fenced to keep dogs in. Fencing to keep wildlife out in any effective manner is monstrously expensive. Deer can jump a 6′ fence and coyotes can climb higher than that. Bunnies, foxes, groundhogs, and skunks can tunnel under. In Oregon there are cougars and bears as well, which can go over or through most things. As for raptors, good luck with your small pets. Here in the MidAtlantic region, keeping wildlife out is not in my budget. And most of my 5+ acres is managed for wildlife anyway, so no fence.

  36. There’s a lot of it I like, but also some bits I really don’t. For coming up on £4.62 million I’d want some work done. And being on a bench plateau in the middle of nowhere feels a tad risky. But I’ll take the entryway and the fireplace, no questions asked.

  38. Perhaps we could all pool our money and make it a BDH retreat center. And list it on AirBnB in the luxury section to recoup our money!

  40. Yes! This home is in my neck of Oregon, Southern Oregon. Crazy creative around here 🙂 If only we also won the recent powerball….

    • LOL! I was thinking similar! I would need MORE than 6 million for this, you have to pay for upkeep, maintenance/cleaning, and the people to do all of the said upkeep/maintenance/cleaning. I would also need either a chauffeur to drive me, or a pilot to fly my helicopter (not to mention the purchase of, maintenance of & payment to the people to do said things) 🙃

    • The property taxes! Of course if you have that much money, the property taxes isn’t a big deal. 🤷‍♀️

      • Umm, isn’t this outside any town’s jurisdiction? It’s on top of a mountain, which town has a right to property taxes there?

  42. The entry way alone would be worth it. But if the BDH is coming to visit, the place will need more bedrooms and bathrooms. We’re a Horde after all …

  43. Wow! Reminds me of S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series. They had a community that was based on LOTR, mostly the Elves, but still!
    This could totally have been their homebase:)

    • So it took a decade to build – not surprising! – and then they decided not to live in it. And their even bigger property next door (that’s where all the bedrooms were, folks) sold at auction for $1.5M. Yikes.

      On the plus side, the LOTR house has geothermal heated floors on all three levels, which is a huge energy savings. And that pool is solar heated, but you could see that from the aerial shots.

  48. The main problem isn’t the $6M, it’s the helicopter you need to do grocery runs. Plus the lobbying to get your “neighboring” towns to install helipads.

  50. Definitely dedicated to their vision. That stairway alone, if it’s real wood, would have taken months. I can admire the artistry of the construction but “no thanks” to owning it!

  52. I grew up in a mobile home. I love efficient/effective use of space. big houses don’t bother me if there’s a purpose and it’s designed effectively. my maternal uncle and aunt have a 4 story home and I love every single room because it’s all functional and designed thoughtfully. another maternal aunt and uncle have a 2 story home and it drives me bonkers because it’s so ineffective with it’s space design.

    this house is gorgeous but I just look at it and think it’s a giant waste of space. they could’ve done so much more with efficient space use and it would’ve looked just as amazing if not more so. cool concept, but take it back to the drawing board please.

  54. I feel like this house was staged since it doesn’t have a full house of furniture and if that’s the case, the pink couch in the fireplace room feels like a strange choice. The style just doesn’t fit. Now, if that was the owner’s, more power to them for picking something they love!

    • The dragon inlays on the fireplace are pink and blue. I think the pink sofa with blue throw pillows is meant to pick up on that color scheme. As for its shape, it seems like that whole are is roughly circular, so a rectangular couch would probably be more awkward. Overall, I find the princess couch in front of the dragon fireplace rather whimsical. Not really my taste, but I appreciate the design concept.

      • I didn’t pick up that the fireplace has pink in it! I think my phone colors are a bit skewed. That makes more sense.

  55. No place is perfect until you make it your own.

    Have you looked in Canada……we’re not perfect either, but we gave some lovely spots…..

  56. Spectacular yes, but somehow vaguely disturbing. I can’t see myself ever feeling comfortable there.

  57. It is a piece of art. Ashland is an interesting place.

    I just moved from that valley all the way to New England to escape the wildfire smoke and the marijuana harvest smells. You are stuck indoors 5 months of the year and even the indoor air quality isn’t great.
    No wonder they are selling.
    And good luck to the buyer in finding homeowner’s insurance.

  58. I did notice that the listing has been on 1000 days. That is close to 3 years. The property may be over priced.

  60. I am amused that so many people are commenting on the carpet in the bathroom but nobody that I’ve seen so far says ‘WTF? Only 2 bedrooms?’

    For that price I would definitely want at least 4. But I come from a hobbit type family and have a lot of friends and relations 🙂

  61. I don’t understand how this humongous house has only 2 bedrooms. I agree that we should pool our money and take turns staying a week? at a time. I volunteer to go first. 😇

  62. Ahhh…what would it be like to live there? Sigh… And to be able to employ a crew to keep it clean. Can you imagine washing the windows? :0)

  63. Waay, way over the top. I began to feel seasick.
    The thing with Hobbit houses they were small and you could get away with rustic floors and furniture. This is way way too much-though I like the smaller house!

  64. I would even contemplate moving to the USA for this house, it’s gorgeous. I would need a really big fence around it though

  66. Off topic here- is there a schedule for your Dragon Con times somewhere? I can’t seem to find information about it.

  68. Wow! Thanks for showing this. What mad architect was turned loose to design or build it? Definitely fantastic and just a touch creepy. I agree that it calls for a “root cellar” in the underpinnings , but that’s just a fun thing. For rugs in the bathroom, no opinion, never tried it. But…who is going to dust and polish all those branches and twigs? Then again if you can design or buy that house, you can probably hire a team of elves or brownies to come in at night and go through it. Someone knows how to have fun with money.

  69. This property has been for sale, off and on, since 2010. Started at $6.84M. Went up to $8.24M, and slowly went down to it’s current sales price. Lovely place, but too remote, and too expensive. May need to knock off another $2M for a sale.

    • You can look at the Redfin listing linked in the article and the history of the house being on sale for years 🙂. It is not AI

  71. Gorgeous! Fabulous! Lovely,yes!! I love it! But whoever is selling will probably take it in the shorts. This is so specialized, only a small amount of people can afford to buy it- AND they have to be unique like the BDH, the LotR, fantasy and appreciative art people. And it’s in Ashland, OR. Home of the way-cool Ashland Shakespeare Theater.But a state who welcomes you to spend your money, then tells you to go home.( I lived in Grants Pass for awhile.)

  72. Beautiful home, yes, but I wouldn’t want to live in it. The cabin on the property is more warm feeling than the main house, which makes me feel cold. I’ve been in gorgeous homes like this before & while they are beautiful, they feel sterile, even when furnished. Plus, who wants to clean that much space? Now the land, yes, the land is worth every penny & the views are absolutely gorgeous.

    As for the carpet in the bathroom – the first apartment my husband and I lived in had carpet EVERYWHERE. Bathroom, kitchen, etc. It was a PITA to keep clean. It was an older complex at that time and I’m sure by now (36 years later) it’s been either totally remodeled or torn down.

  73. My first thought- Ogden Morrow’s house! without the maze and immersion bays, lol.

    [Ready Player One reference, for those who haven’t read that. Which you should- so much better than the movie]

  75. It is lovely. Too lovely. It almost looks AI generated. Call me skeptical, but most of the beautiful things I see posted now I don’t believe they are real. There is too much fake stuff out there. AI has gotten too good at generating images that then get passed off as real. It would be amazing if that house really existed though.

  76. Hahahahahaha!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I literally started listening to the Lord of the Rings audiobook last night and then saw this post. This is beautiful

  79. It’s stunning, but it looks like it would be very hard to find places where a person could display their own art, photographs, or… books!

  81. I was really excited at first. I’m like, “I’m in Oregon!” But then I saw the price. I definitely don’t have $6 million. lol.

  82. This is in Ashland Oregon, my hometown. It’s so beautiful and crazy expensive to live in. I sure can’t afford it anymore.

  83. Think it would be cool to visit, but not to live in. plus it only has 2 bedrooms. I wouldn’t be able to invite a bunch of people over to share in the fantasy. And to parrot someone else, why blue carpet in the bathroom? can we say mold, mildew, bacteria? Yuck. It has a charm, but I would not spend 6 million on it.

    • Agreed with everything except the part about having guests over. If I were to retreat on top of a mountain, it would be in order to avoid people, not to bring them over to stay. 🙂

  84. This house is beautiful! I wish you had 6M to spend on it cuz i know you’d share pics. But i think it’s too gray in Oregon for you both 😉

  85. It’s gorgeous. I would have to rip up all of the carpet though, especially in the bathroom.

  86. My teenage years were spent in Ashland, some of my treasured memories. Beautiful place to live. Lithia Park, Shakespeare plays, concerts at the college.
    It’s a Beautiful home, awesome interior. A place to let your imagination soar.

  87. The outside looks like half-a-dozen fantasy styles…including the ground ekeles in Mercedes Lackey’s Hawkbrother Vales. Or maybe LOTR meets Spanish plus Pueblo.

    I did have one question, answered by the history that the house was never lived in: THERE ARE NO BOOKCASES. WHERE THE HELL ARE THE BOOKCASES??!

  88. Beautiful home on 700 acres. Yes, sign me up. As soon as I can collect enough change to add up to 10 million, I will put in an offer.

Skip to content