Live in Middle-earth

[Kuruharan]

This is not your average cookie cutter development.

I'm afraid I have to disillusion you.

I've been by the original neighborhood in question any number of times. By and large the houses there are just cookie cutter homes, at least in the sense that all the houses look basically alike in their suburban Americana-ness. This may just reflect the lack of imagination on the part of the residents (of which there are considerable, it has become a pretty crowded area.)

I too was personally rather disappointed when I saw this. Across the major street to the west, though, there is an addition called "Brandywine." For some reason my reaction to Brandywine was more positive. The houses in that addition are on a more modest scale. I think it probably boils down to a silly impression on my part that it is a nice touch to name an unpretentious housing development "Brandywine" which reminds me of unpretentious Buckland and hobbits. On the other hand, if you are going to name your addition "Rivendell" you'd better come up with something original and fantastic to live up to the name you have chosen. It is not that I object to the suburban Americana style (or whatever the technical name for it is) itself. I just wish the developers could have selected a different style...more, I don't know, elvish perhaps.

Except for on Lonely Mountain St. For that street, the developers should have imported a few tons of granite for the express purpose of having the residents construct their own mountain halls!! (I'd do it.)

[JennyHallu]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I too was personally rather disappointed when I saw this. Across the major street to the west, though, there is an addition called "Brandywine."

Brandywine doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with Tolkien, however. It's been a common place name long before he used it. As a matter of fact, the apartment complex where I live is called Brandywine. (No this does not make me a hobbit.)

And by average cookie-cutter, I meant only the quality of the construction, not the similarity of each house to its neighbor. I guess I meant that this was an "above-average cookie cutter neighborhood."

[Holbytlass]

Originally Posted by Kuru

Except for on Lonely Mountain St. For that street, the developers should have imported a few tons of granite for the express purpose of having the residents construct their own mountain halls!! (I'd do it.)

I can imagine the hassle you'd have to go through to get the permits, making sure it was zoned AND getting the neighborhood association's(I can't stand these) permission to do so!

I bet most of the inhabitant's don't even know where the name "Rivendell" came from. Or if they happened to see the movie think "hey, they stole our neighborhood name!"

[Kuruharan]

Brandywine doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with Tolkien, however. It's been a common place name long before he used it.

A fair point. However, in this case, when this area was still the boonies the general vicinity was named Earlywine after the local golf course/park. When Rivendell went up, the name of the neighborhood was changed, although the name of the elementary school was not.

[JennyHallu]

Ok then that's just cheezy

[Gil-Galad]

we could always live in Gimli, Manitoba, named after everyones favourite dwarf (not really, it was named after a character in a book, the first settlers that got there thought they were the first, but they found a book Gimli Fimli or something, so they amed the town Gimli, it has a pretty big Nickel Deposit i hear)