living in a hobbit hole

[pinkytoe]

And then there is this option too:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/tiny-homes--man-lives-in-self-built-hobbit-hole-in-rural-oregon-164837144.html
I love all the simple living comments too.

[Jilly]

I like the inspiring comments, as well, but I wonder what happened with his wife and two children. I was not able to load the the video; was that explained there? I am hoping that it was not the result of some tragedy.

[sweetana3]

Nope, his marriage appears to have broken up but the family moved to Oregon with him in those early years. Not sure after that.

[pinkytoe]

I reserved the book that inspired him (Payne Hollow) at my library as I had never heard of it before. There were already six holds on it which I find interesting.

[Tiam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT1magsSVCU

[gail_d]

I first learned about Harlan Hubbard and his wife Anna from Wendell Berry's book, Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work. Harlan, an artist, was an inspiration to Berry. Harlan married (in his 40s, I believe) his wife Anna (a librarian), and both of them built a life "on the fringes of society," as Harlan described it. Payne Hollow is the little self-sufficient farm Harlan and Anna lived on after they had build their own tiny shantyboat and drifted all the way down the Mississippi to New Orleans (as described in the book Shantyboat; then they took it up the bayous, and in 1990, after Harlan and Anna's passing, Shantyboat on the Bayous was published.

The first line of the Wikipedia article on Harlan has it exactly right: "Harlan Hubbard (January 4, 1900 - January 16, 1988) was an American artist and author who lived a simple life that Henry David Thoreau only experimented with." Thoreau lived at Walden Pond two years, two months, and two days: Harlan and Anna lived that spare, intentional life for 40 years.

A new (limited release) movie has been made about the Hubbards though I have not yet seen it: Wonder: the Lives of Anna and Harlan Hubbard.

[catherine]

He also tells his whole story in Radical Simplicity (not to be confused with Jim Merkel's Radical Simplicity).