Franklin MacFie’s Hobbit Hut: An Architectural Wonder

Franklin MacFie was an artist with no training in architecture.

Source: New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (via Facebook)
Photos: Courtesy

The Franklin MacFie House, located in Hernandez, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, was listed for local significance in the National Register of Historic Places on August 19, 2024.

The Franklin MacFie House, also called the Hobbit Hut, is a ferrocement dwelling in Hernandez, New Mexico. The house is a free form structure that is sited in a small grove of cottonwood trees on a bluff above the Rio Chama floodplain. The walls and roof undulate in various shapes and form three main lobes. The walls and ceilings are built of reinforced concrete punctuated with church windows, theater lights, and embedded decorative objects like glass bowls, colored glass and automobile taillights.

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Franklin MacFie was an artist with no training in architecture. The house was created using reinforced concrete, reinforcing steel rods, chicken wire, and burlap. The house has limited straight lines and from the outside appears as a series of reinforced concrete domes.

The listed property boundary includes the MacFie Barn and circular drive and the noncontributing Quinn House shed, and acequia.