Tonight, on Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous: the fabulous, fiction-fueled subterranean playground of New Zealand's most renowned resident!
When Peter Jackson finished work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the director asked New Line Cinema if he could keep the Bag End set. That's the "Hobbit hole" home of Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo, situated in Hobbiton in the Shire. This bit of trivia was documented years ago, but until now no one knew what Jackson did with that set.
Jackson's home is an enormous, 1930s mansion situated on a large farm near the New Zealand town of Masterton. Built to exacting detail inside a hill close to the house is a perfect replica of Bag End. It's human-sized (not Hobbit-sized), and is so realistic you can live in it. In fact, frequent visitors to Jackson's home do just that.
You know, regular, everyday folks like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
Sure, you can walk up to the big round door on the side of the hill and enter that way. But that's boring. Jackson has a much better path: through the secret passages in his basement. Tunnels under Jackson's home run from the director's basement to Bag End, but accessing them requires activating items that could've come right out of a spy novel.
According to a man who worked on the home, you start in the wine cellar. Pulling one special bottle there opens a secret door. After a corridor that's over 100 feet long you find a scene from a horror film: a skeleton and some bodies just outside a torture chamber. (Don't worry, it's all fake.) In that chamber, you pull on a book, and an entire bookcase opens to reveal Bag End.
Jackson reportedly also owns a collection of World War I planes he someday hopes to house on the farm, along with an airport and train tracks.
Because rich people are just like the rest of us.
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