Storybook Houses All Over The World. Get Your Inspiration For a Dreamy Home

by Laura Mitran · Published February 13, 2017 · Updated February 13, 2017

Storybook architecture was popularized in the 1920s. It’s an architectural style mixing old English cottage with a playful style inspired by children’s books and Hollywood movies. Here are some of the nicest storybook houses all over the world, to get your inspiration from, if you want a home right out of a children’s book or a Disney movie.

Storybook architecture was popularised by, among others, Hollywood art director Harry Oliver who designed Spadena House, in Beverly Hills. Let’s start from here.

Spadena House, Beverly Hills

This house was originally built in 1921 to serve as the offices and dressing rooms for a film studio and was moved to its present location in 1934.

The converted private home, with its pointy, lopsided roof, tiny windows and stucco with a distressed paint job was then surrounded by an intentionally overgrown English-style garden and a moat-like pond. The first residents of the 3,500 square feet (330 m²) home, the Spadena family, lent the house their name. A second family moved in and renovated the interior in the 1960s. The moat began leaking by then and the owners filled it with soil and planted a garden.

The home has been called a precursor to Walt Disney’s concept of Imagineering, whereby stage sets become fully realized environments.

Storybook Houses. Winkler Cottage on Vancouver Island, Canada

This cottage was built with local douglas fir, logged and cut with a portable sawmill. The roof is cedar shingles (shakes) hand split and steamed to make them supple enough to follow the curves of the roof. The cedar door and windows, like the rest of the house, are all handmade.

Storybook houses. White house in Akebono Kodomo-no-Mori Park, Japan

This house was built in a theme park inspired by the Finnish “Moomin” series, centered on a family of hippopotamus-like creatures. It has solar panels and live grass growing on the roof and a beautiful iron railing on the outside. The inside of the building is three floors, with elaborate, wooden staircases an small windows for children to climb through. There are also beds, a kitchen, couches, or other places for children to play. The basement doubles as a dance studio and opens up to a nearby stream.

Storybook houses. Hobbit houses in Hobbiton, New Zeeland

Hobbiton is a small village built as a film set for the famous “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” series. After the shooting, the shire was preserved and became a major tourist attraction. It’s a must for Tolkien stories lovers.

Storybook houses. Blaise Hamlet, England

Blaise Hamlet, in north west Bristol, England, is composed of a group of nine small cottages around a green. It was built around 1811 for retired employees of Quaker banker and philanthropist John Scandrett Harford, who owned Blaise Castle House. The hamlet was designed by John Nash, master of the Picturesque style. The cottages are all unique and include brick chimneys and dormer windows with some having thatched roofs. They are all property of the National Trust. Only the Rose Cottage can be rented as a holiday cottage, the rest of them are occupied and not open to the public.

Here are some of them.