Rhode Island's Hobbit Stone Age

Rhode Island may be 22nd out of 30 states in miles of total coastline but when you compare coastline length to land acres, it ranks second only to Maryland.

- L.A. BERRY

However, it's not the beaches that pique gastronomic or geologic interest in the Ocean State.
It's the granite.
Rocks from quarries in what is commonly known as South County yield origin stories up to a billion years old and today, they provide foundations and walls for a fantastical collection of hobbit (yup, you read that right) houses designed for fine dining and overnight experiences.

J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings said, "Not all who wander are lost," but even he might lose himself for an evening in a real-life yet true-to-the-imagination Maker's Mark HOBBIT HOUSE™ nestled into the hillside boulders on the 3,500 acres of The Preserve Sporting Club & Residences in Richmond, Rhode Island.* "Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell," Tolkien wrote, "nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat. It was a Hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." Inside such HOBBIT HOUSES, candlelight glows off dinner tables repurposed from whisky barrels and shadows dance on the natural tree trunks and locally sourced stones in the walls around you.

BEDROCK COMFORT

Stones are far older than hobbit legends.