Greetings from my new home on the coast of Maine! I write this looking out the window, where I can see the ocean in the distance. The sun has set, and the sea and sky are the same pearly blue-gray. The fog rolls in nearly every night, turning the yard into a hazy dream. Having never lived near the ocean before, the cool breezes during the height of summer are a most welcome surprise.
Other blessings include the abundant wildlife. There’s nesting bluebirds and chickadees that live in the bird houses we inherited, and a raucous family of crows who I’ve affectionately named the Mortmains. Other visitors include mourning doves, red-wing blackbirds, goldfinches, sparrows, baby squirrels and chipmunks. A doe even made an appearance right outside the window before straying into the wild blueberry field at the edge of the property.
I try to focus on these good things because it’s all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the long list of home improvements that must be done, or by the stacks of boxes that have no place to go as of yet. Storage and organization is certainly a priority for a small house, but I’ve decided to take the Dashwoods’ sage advice, who downsized from a lavish manor house to a much humbler cottage.
In the meantime, till all these alterations could be made, they were wise enough to be contented with the house as it was; and each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns, and endeavoring, by placing around them books and other possessions, to form themselves a home. Marianne’s pianoforte was unpacked and properly disposed of; and Elinor’s drawings were affixed to the walls of their sitting room.
-Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 6
(I mentioned in a previous entry how much I love their cottage, so that’s where I’ll begin my list 😊)
Barton Cottage, Devonshire
‘A view of Barton Valley as they entered it gave them cheerfulness. It was a pleasant, fertile spot, well wooded, and rich in pasture. After winding along for more than a mile, they reached their own house. A small green court was the whole of its domain in front; and a neat wicket gate admitted them into it. As a house, Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact; but as a cottage, it was defective, for the building was regular, the roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were the walls covered in honeysuckles. A narrow passage led directly through the house into the garden behind. On each side of the entrance was a sitting room, about sixteen feet square; and beyond them were the offices and the stairs. Four bedrooms and two garrets formed the rest of the house. It had not been built many years and was in good repair. In comparison of Norland, it was poor and small indeed! But the tears which recollection called forth as they entered were soon dried away.’
‘The situation of the house was good. High hills rose immediately behind, and at no great distance on each side; some of which were open downs, and others cultivated and woody. The village of Barton was chiefly on one of these hills, and formed a pleasant view from the cottage windows. The prospect in front was more extensive; it commanded the whole of the valley, and reached into the country beyond.’ –Sense and Sensibility / Jane Austen
Bag End, Hobbiton
‘It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel with paneled walls and floors tiled and carpeted provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill, and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries, wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining rooms – all were on the same floor, and indeed, on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side going in, for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and the meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.’ –The Hobbit / J.R.R. Tolkien
‘Inside Bag End, Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open window of a small room looking west onto the garden. The late afternoon was bright and peaceful. The flowers glowed red and golden: snapdragons and sunflowers, and nasturtiums trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the round windows.’ –The Fellowship of the Ring / J.R.R. Tolkien
Godsend Castle, Suffolk
‘I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is rather romantic – two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live, yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted onto a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact, and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower – all that remains of an even older castle – still stands on its mound close by.’
‘How strange and beautiful it looked in the late afternoon light! I can still recapture that first glimpse – see the sheer grey stone walls and towers against the pale-yellow sky, the reflected castle stretching towards us on the brimming moat, the floating patches of emerald-green waterweed. No breath of wind ruffled the looking-glass water, no sound of any kind came to us. Our excited voices only made the castle seem more silent.’ –I Capture the Castle / Dodie Smith
Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire
‘It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked […] She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, though she had not counted. In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes. There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.’
‘The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland… and here and there, high in the arched blueness, floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.’ –The Secret Garden / Frances Hodgson-Burnett
It was hard to narrow it down to only four houses, but I didn’t want to get carried away with an extensive list. Honorable mentions go to Orchard House from Little Women and Manderley from Rebecca. Orchard House is cozy like Barton Cottage, while Manderley is a grand manor house like Misselthwaite.
And speaking of Rebecca, Tony Walker from the
has narrated the whole book on his YouTube channel. Give it a listen if you’re in the mood for an atmospheric gothic tale with plenty of twists and turns!Note: You can find all of the books mentioned here on my bookshop.org shop. As an affiliate, I will earn a small commission if you make a purchase from my storefront. I’ve added lots of my favorite titles, so take a look if you need something good to read 😊
What are your favorite fictional homes? Let me know in the comments!
I am jealous of all your colourful bird visitors! How delightful it must be to see them all.
This is such a lovely collection of homes. I always wanted to live in Bilbo's cozy little hobbit hole. A lot of the fictional homes I loved as a child seemed to be makeshift ones: the Borrowers' home beneath the floorboards, the Boxcar Children's boxcar, and the deserted cottage from Julie Andrews' Mandy.