Meet the great-grandad, 90, living off in the grid in his very own Hobbit house

Stuart Grant’s enchanting off-grid cottage looks like it followed a blueprint taken from Tolkien’s novels directly, but his decades-old project is very much his own vision.

The 90-year-old moved into the cottage he bought as a wreck with no roof and no doors in 1984, while he was renovating a house.

But he found it so satisfying doing DIY on the quirky outbuilding which dated back 200 years, that he decided to make it his home.

Good Night,Gian Franco and all friends:
Picture: Mr. Stuart Grant´s hobbit house in Scotland. Built in 1980 pic.twitter.com/IhxFq37e2n

— MEERA VI 🇦🇷 💙 #ProVida #LasLetrasdeMEERAVI (@MeeraVGonzalez) April 12, 2018

Dad-of-two Stuart trained as a joiner but suffered from ME for 46 years so said he worked “in slow motion” on the three-bedroom property in Tomich, near Inverness.

People have been flooding him with requests to stay at his enchanting home after a French tourist board shared images of it. Stuart doesn’t have a mobile phone or use the internet and no longer drives due to his age, but he loves getting out and meeting people.

“I haven’t watched Lord of the Rings. It’s just a coincidence”

In an interview back in January, Stuart said: “I haven’t watched Lord of the Rings. It’s just a coincidence that my front door is almost the same shape and same kind of wood – oak. There are stained glass windows on each side of it.”

Talking about what the house was like before he bought it and started work, Stuart said: “Before me there were cows, calves and chickens living in here, and a donkey – It was a shoemakers’ cottage and a croft. There was no roof, just four walls which are 200 years old.”

The pensioner added: “It is not a fancy house, it is made from other people’s leftovers. I was always a glutton for scenic beauty, beautiful houses, and thatched cottages in England – this has a concrete roof but it looks like a thatched roof.”

Stuart Grant, a Scottish fan of Lord of the Rings, has built his very own hobbit house. The house is located in the Scottish highlands, surrounded by mountains and forests. pic.twitter.com/eaWsJub42L

— Ken (@kenbfcace) August 9, 2021

After starting work on it, Stuart then moved to Australia for a year. Having loved life Down Under so much Stuart lived in Oz for 14 years and and travelled back to the UK overland, via Afghanistan.

He had bought land and planned to renovate a larger house. Stuart said: “I moved in in 1984 but it wasn’t done up, I was living with concrete mixers – I was just doing it in slow motion. I put on a roof and doors, there were just doorways.”

He added: “I thought I would make it comfortable while I’m doing up the house. I was getting such a buzz out of doing it – I don’t know how much it cost. I cut the wood myself from fallen trees and collected stones from the river for the stonework. I put the stairs in.”

“My mum said ‘You’re always scribbling’ when I was a little boy”

The house took quite a few years but Stuart revealed he loved doing it “so much and got carried away”. He revealed that doing creative projects has kept him young. Stuart said: “You get a real buzz out of doing interesting stuff. I have just always been an inventor and a designer. My mum said ‘you’re always scribbling’ when I was a little boy.”

He said: “People think I’m clever because I do original things, but they’ve not tried. I’ll be 90 in less than two weeks but I feel like a teenager – People can’t believe I’m 90. I’ve travelled the world, it is all just a great adventure. Work is the greatest therapy.”