B.C. man spends 2 decades realizing childhood dream of constructing ‘Hobbit House’

Adam meets a man who spent decades realizing a childhood dream underground.

CHILLIWACK,B.C. — When Jacob Hegeman began walking up the hillside on this rural property, his feet were small, but his dreams were big.

“As a kid, you just want to see what you can do with the shovel and move dirt,” Jacob recalls.

The then-five-year-old wondered if he could move enough dirt to move into the cave that remained.

“It wasn’t just like decorating my room,” Jacob remembers. “I could physically create and make a space.”

So, every in day in the summer, Jacob would dig a little, despite every winter, finding his cave would collapse a lot.

“The dream never really died,” Jacob says. “It existed in my head. It was just something I had to tackle.”

So, Jacob kept digging for a decade. Until he was 15, and his dad — impressed with his son’s determination — surprised Jacob with a visit from an excavator.

“It was unbelievable,” Jacob smiles. “I thought, ‘That looks a lot bigger than my shovel!’”

After completing what would have been a whole summer’s worth of digging with just one scoop, the excavator lowered a sturdy structure into the hole and buried it.

Then, after watching the Lord of the Rings movies, Jacob was inspired to turn that empty structure into something like a Hobbit’s home.

“So that gave me a vision,” Jacob says. “Hey! My pit looks ugly. What can I do to make it beautiful?”

Over the next 13 years, Jacob taught himself all the construction, design, and fine-woodworking skills to transform his hole in the hill, into an underground home.

“Like Disneyland, you look around and its visually immersive,” Jacob says before bending down to walk through the circular blue door that leads into the cozy space. “It’s a little escape from the world.”

Jacob Hegeman Jacob Hegeman puts his feet up in the “Hobbit House” he worked on for decades.

It features a wood-burning fireplace that illuminates tiles on the floor, a chandelier on the ceiling, and in between — a pantry to store sustenance, a bookshelf to cultivate knowledge, and handmade leather chairs to welcome company.

“It’s a satisfying feeling to now have a space to go,” Jacob says. “And I have friends over and we have food and drink and good times.”

And all year round, Jacob can feel grateful that a boy with unbridled imagination — thanks to unending determination and unexpected generosity — grew-up to be a man who made his dream come true.