Living Like a Hobbit 1

Living Like a Hobbit

By Veronica MacDonald Ditko
An Accidental Anthropologist

I’ve had a strange fascination with small round houses my entire life. I blame the Smurfs and their cute mushroom-capped homes.

My father would always take us by the “Mushroom House” in Bethesda, Maryland, close to where he grew up. My childhood friend and I looked at fake teepees in the Poconos. My high school history book featured an ancient round house entirely make from whale bones and hide. I viewed reconstructed Celtic homes at an outdoor museum in Wales. I also continually pass rock salt houses off of New Jersey highways. And lastly: have you ever seen the tuna can-shaped lighthouse in Baltimore?

What’s so appealing about teeny round structures other than being so darn cute?

I’ve looked up a few things about salt houses, and as it turns out the bottom of a cone or dome structure, a circle, is actually good at relieving the pressure of contents inside. So once rock salt is poured in, the pressure from the weight of it is evenly distributed. Maybe that’s why silos full of corn or wheat are shaped that way.

My husband has an additional theory. Rock salt won’t get stuck in corners or cracks of a cone, because there are none. True!

Living in a cone is a different story. As with the Celts, there was no place for smoke to go once they made a fire except into their lungs. I don’t think Celts lived to be very old.

And in the case of the Seven Foot Knoll lighthouse in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which was transplanted from the Patapsco River, it did not have to be tall since it was near the Chesapeake lowlands. All ships needed to see was the light warning them of the shallow shoals, as it sat literally screw piled into the rock. It was also a new architectural style in the 1850s that was actually iron prefab and octagonal, but changed to round after a few replacements. I’d like to order one of those! I guess I’m more than a century too late though.

The Hobbit movies only added fuel to my fire. How I would love to live in The Shire, big feet and all, in this idyllic setting with homes built into the hillside. Perhaps that’s what is most appealing about these tiny, curvy houses. Looking at them, you can only have a sense of peace. Their cuteness might even entice you to take care of them. But first, make a darn hole for that smoke to escape! Geez!

Veronica MacDonald Ditko is originally from the Jersey Shore, but married and settled in northern New Jersey. Her journalism career started a decade ago after studying Psychology and Anthropology in Massachusetts. She has written for several newspapers and magazines including The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Springfield Union News and Sunday Republican, Happi, Chemical Week, The Hawthorne Press, The Jewish Standard, Suite101.com and more.