Magical Hobbit-Like Eco Cave House

every now and then you can visit a place that just makes it feel like you've been thrust back in time and that's exactly the case with this next incredible earth house that we're about to visit I can't wait to show you this one today gram hey g'day how's it going mate good welcome welcome to Underhill what an absolutely spectacular place it's been a project of love over probably 40 years started off as a little swamp with a just a little stream running through it lovely centerpiece for the entire Underhill Valley absolutely now I can see that cave house over there just beckoning us can we go have a look please food all right let's check it out when I left England I was about 17 years old and I spent three years traveling from England overland through Europe North Africa the Greek islands I stayed in caves in Afghanistan and Iran during that period of time I stayed with some wonderful people and it was my life's education of course I saw the opportunity to create something down here which would be very unique and very special and a lot of people talk about it and they think of it as a as a underground hobbit hole I must say that when I when I first built the cave Peter Jackson probably weren't heard of in that field I mean already I'm amazed at just how well it fits into the mountainside yeah it just fits in as part of it and that's how it's designed of course to be part of the entire valley and this steps curving around there as well so you can actually go up and get up around the top and the course the top is covered in grass yep and we have the sheep in here every now and again there's a stirred everything down keep it almost yes right fair enough should we go inside oh my goodness this is under hill this is unbelievable this is absolutely gorgeous I do believe that people spend far too much energy and effort in creating huge dwellings that take a lot of heating and take a little of looking after and cleaning and and painful so to have something like like this I think it's right for the soul is right for the heart it's certainly very economical it's like you're walking back into something that's been built for hundreds of years really I was about to say it actually felt like I just took a step back in time unbelievable I mean the first thing that I notice is this roof the pattern up here is gorgeous amazing movement how did you even do this well the whole structure was built by from digging a hole in the ground open to the sky then we filled it up with sand and on top of the stand we put boulders from the peroneal mountain and smaller pebbles from the streams and then we poured concrete over the top and the concrete bonded the stones together and then we dug out the sand leaving the ceiling that is sort of clever back in 1972 we'd be sitting here in this clay muddy cold area and I'd say one day this is going to be an amazing place where you can come down and stay and they go yeah dad yeah dad they didn't there see it of course did you actually have to put these beams in place first then yes absolutely yeah and then you fill it all up with sand or everything else on the top that's right Wow what are they dirty and away yeah and in this backpack here you can see um we didn't use the stones at just an actual sand yeah which also looks fantastic that is that yeah absolutely and then this is a just especially Nvidia simple Scylla yeah yeah yeah it allowed you man to walk to the back of the cave it certainly does right behind you of course the most important part is the wine cellar I completely agree and this sub opens up like this and oh wow look at that and just how heavy everything is I mean isn't this yeah uncle woody yes incredible again everything made out of macrocarpa yeah um everything is oiled which gives a beautiful smell and of course being resistant to the earth like this I imagine temperature in here is very stable right absolutely in wintertime summertime at 17 degrees all the time fantastic so you can come down here on the coldest of days and at 17 degrees and the hottest of days out there with 28 or 30 degrees in that's 17 in here so after working the wine very really here it's really healthy yep alright and so our hero into here um the dress again made with the big slabs of macrocarpa I do these were made by a friend of mine that has a mobile blacksmith shop and travels around New Zealand and I love the way that you've actually mixed all of the wood work with the natural stone as well it just makes it so rustic isn't it beautiful I mean one of the things that I notice in their space is that everything feels real yes you know I mean it's like it could be abused by Vikings and be absolutely one yeah yeah yeah yeah a little detail yeah absolutely and of course we're actually by candle light at the moment aren't we so there's no electricity down here none whatsoever no didn't want to have electricity I felt it was a place where we could get away from everything and I think that once you have electricity you probably not going to get away from everything you're not going to get away from your phones you're not going to get away from the computer and candle light produces such a lovely glow during the day and in the evening yeah but we have running water we do we've got hot and cold running water and then we go we take that through the pro range the coal range heats the water up in the old copper cylinder so that we've got hot and cold running water of the tap here brilliant and what a feature that coal Rangers didn't know isn't it spectacular built around about 19 1880 yeah it's one of the few coal ranges that has got the option of having this open and opening this up and making it into an open fire right and even a tap connected to a server connection so this this heats water within the core well that's wonderful and then this is the oven of course yeah and we use this for cooking beautiful roasts of pork and lamb and if they're absolutely amazing so all the cooking traditionally is done on this gorgeous I love the way the year you've got the wood storage there as well yeah so this is all like just style what is this yeah this is stone and this came with brought this up from South Island so we were able to use these for the two benches wonderful and I mean just the attention to detail with everything in here that incredible floor rugs here and that the floor is also actually how did you do the floor because this looks quite special as well yeah that was that's interesting that's got all of those chests as you'll see in the center there yep and then around here this was some area and we washed we washed the concrete off the top of that right and just colored this little piece just a little bit only on the outside right so being resistant to a into a hillside as well how difficult was it to keep it watertight very important of course that's the most important thing so we paid a lot of attention to that detail and we have um we have a drain running right around the outside so that any of the water that comes onto the roof will go into the drain and out into the hole into the pot right and anything comes down the inside of the wall between the tray and the wall that we see in the inside of the cave goes into another grain which runs the whole perimeter of the of the cave brilliant and so a sleeping area over there sleeping area um beautiful beautiful bed you'll hear some it's a really unusual shape it isn't unusual shape it's um a lot wider at the center yeah narrow at the top of quite narrow at the bottom where you feet sure but it's an inner spring mattress and it has beautiful Egyptian sheets on and it's one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in I bet it just looks so incredible everything is just so rustic isn't it I mean even the detail of the window I mean this is spectacular yeah that's lovely little window and if you look closely and give you a clue of where it came from that is so cool so it's an old car windscreen it's an old car windscreen yeah what an amazing space and of course the windows we did it stay with the traditional square windows we followed the shape of the cave and all of the windows were put in with a flashing so if the work any small amount of movement in the cave who would take up in the cop yeah and not shatter the window assuming rounded windows round rooms in fact I actually think one of the things that stands out most to me about this is the fact that there are no square edges right anywhere in here everything is an organic shape and it really actually just makes the whole space seem so much more serene for that that doesn't it doesn't it yeah yeah it's my heart it was no hide corners or anything yeah absolutely yeah yeah beautiful table wonderful for sitting ten to twelve people around for a big roast yep I can imagine party absolutely beautiful and then you've got the little romantic table they're out on the jetty as well yes yes and and watch the little places that you can set around the pond we've got a little pétanque called over on the other side yeah and so what about what about toilet and shower well have a look at the toilet rail we've built another cave I was not expecting this I mean first thing I noticed the bathtub Wow yeah yeah an old cast-iron bathtub that price for just two people yeah um in the staff out and the staff absolutely looks out over the pond beautiful setting yeah I mean every every which way you look is just gorgeous again the use of the stones yeah it all just looks absolutely magical so this is the toilet and here that this is the toilet right it's a little eco toilet yep and very simple toilet yep which was sawdust from one bucket into the other bucket the other bucket taken away put into compost then start again yep and actually I mean for all of the commercial composting toilet systems that I've seen I actually think it's really hard to beat the bucket system all right it's bulletproof there's no odor it works the throat and testicle and now most importantly it takes what is most commonly perceived as a waste to transit into a resaw today that's right do you actually use it here on the farm yep yep yeah yeah so for fruit trees and that's gonna help you prove when you blender the main paddle huh brilliant fantastic yeah now this is another little cave that we built from you can see this beautiful big beam that we put through here oh yeah this is hold everything up amazing so this macro copper again or is there something else no that's a hardwood this is hardwood right in for hardwood yeah an Australian hardwood came out of a bridge right come on in this is this is a wet area another little cave well I sort of use of stone yeah I'm sealing a wonderful shower gallons and gallons of hot water yeah from a from a Bosch gas hot water cylinder yeah candle light and kerosene like lovely little stone placing yeah this is beautiful you can smell the oil in here another one of the big fish pieces that we use down here yep for the base of the shower wow this is lovely and I mean no huge spaces good shape okay well a lovely it's just wonderful and I feel a window coach to see out and yep absolutely spectacular and the one is out there just to try just to sit the scene and you've got the GT over here as well nice little place to sit in the afternoon have a glass of wine yeah wonderful picture and over the water a little bit it was a dream it was a dream and it was a dream that I wanted to share with the family and a dream that has really come through the lovely it's lovely that my daughter now is able to run it as a as an exclusive and interesting B&B and she gets to meet lots of lovely people and sometimes I get to meet them too and so the big question is I guess what did this cost you to build I have no idea brush I have no idea just a labor of love so it didn't really matter no it was a labor it has been a labor of love there haven't been any records kept on how much it cost over the years it's something that we put some money into it when we've had the money available yep and everything nothing has been dictated by the amount of money that it would cost yeah but on the other hand as you can see from using natural natural materials none of the materials are particularly expensive so yeah not a lot not too much money yeah not too little and I said that is one of the things with natural construction isn't it that that really the biggest expense when you're building with natural materials is actually the labor isn't it that's right and this is the the time that you're able to put into a constructor yeah absolutely absolutely but never sacrifice anything yeah so if we couldn't afford something we just live a little bit longer until we can afford we didn't put anything in that would replace it yep if we use plastic of course everybody last forever but wouldn't absolutely ridiculous you know and we wouldn't have plastic down here we wouldn't have anything down here there wasn't part of what should be here in the environment of what was created well in the 30 minutes that I've been here with you I already feel like I'm 20 years younger and have been thrown completely back into what you have created here is magical thank you so much for sharing it with me Greg few things of leisure thank you being able to visit a space like this is just such a treat for me I mean it actually feels like it was grown by nature and not built by men there really is something about all of the materials that have gone into the construction of this house and the way that it was all put together that just makes it feel so wonderfully organic you can really tell how much love and creativity went into building this place to be honest I actually feel really lucky just to be sitting here right now you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 4,118,501

Keywords: House, Cave, Hobbit, Underhill, Hillside, Off-Grid, Eco, Earth, Natural

Id: -lW4Yux-lzo

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/artcopywriter]

Wow, fantastic little place. Want to book my ticket over there right now!

[u/nickthekiwi]

That moment when you realise that this is probably no more than 20 min away from where you live.

[u/[deleted]]

I dare you to say spectacular again!