Castle, Tall Ship and Hobbit-Style Burrow Found Under One Roof in Yarrow Hotel

YARROW, B.C. — In the rural village of Yarrow, British Columbia, travellers in want of a night's lodging may now choose between a miniature castle, a sailing ship and a house beneath a hill, according to a listing on Atlas Obscura. All three are said to belong to a single establishment, the Hazelnut Inn.

The inn was built over nine years by the Imagination Corporation, a theme-park design and fabrication company, the listing reports. Its founders, Peter and Hailey Sawatzky, stayed in a restored Roman villa on their honeymoon and wondered why they could not build a small castle hotel of their own in Canada.

The last suite finished, the Copper Crown, is a miniature castle. According to the account, a steel dragon guards the garden gate, and a bridge crosses a tiny moat into the courtyard. Four armoured statues watch over the great hall, dragons are carved throughout the masonry and woodwork, and a secret door opens onto a tiny library.

The North Star Suite is built around the stern of the Avellana, a tall ship fabricated in the company's workshop. The vessel was craned into place above the garden entrance before the building was framed around it. Inside, mermaids flank the bed, and a hand-painted astrological map covers the domed ceiling of the tower.

The third lodging, the Under Hill Suite, is cut into an artificial hillside. Concrete tree roots cross its ceiling, carved rabbit doors open onto the garden, and owl heads are sculpted into the bedposts. Flowers hang to dry in the kitchenette. The listing likens it to a house found after a wrong turn in a fairytale.

Taken together, the author concludes, the three suites make the hotel feel like a collection of miniature worlds with beds in them.