Calling Harry Potter Fans: Build a Wizarding School in Your Own Home!

Blackburn Academy

If you wish that an owl would swoop in through your front door and hand you a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, you’re in luck: Benjamin Lee-Roche has transformed his 1880s home in Springville, UT, into a wizarding academy where you can make potions, cast spells, dine in a mess hall with candles floating overhead, and all in all get an education just like Harry Potter.

And hey, if he did it, you can, too!

Lee-Roche—a set designer who happens to be an obsessive fan of J.K. Rowling‘s books—had originally wanted to create a Potter-style experience at a local museum. But when faced with an insurmountable amount of red tape, he decided to bring the magic closer to home. So he established the Blackburn Academy of the Magical Arts under his own roof.

Benjamin Lee-Roche, Potter fan: Nope, nothing obsessive here, move along!

Dominic Valente/Daily Herald via AP

Currently the “school” is accepting applicants (aka anyone willing to pay the “tuition” of $8 to $15 per class) and even overnight boarders through Airbnb for $40 per night. It’s time to polish your potion-making skills and dust off that broomstick pronto!

The making of a magic school

So how did Lee-Roche pull off this magic?

For a year, he trolled eBay and thrift stores for magical merchandise that could help him revamp his house into a place worthy of magicians in training. He gathered velvet drapes and crystal balls to adorn the divination classroom. In the dining room, he attached fake candles to strings and hung them from the ceiling to create a floating effect.

A divination classroom Professor Trelawney could feel at home in

Benjamin Lee-Roche

But don’t expect a movie-worthy  copy of Hogwarts. Beyond just avoiding copyright infringement, Lee-Roche wanted to create an experience inspired by Rowling’s work, but that combined his own interests and a local touch.

“I love the Harry Potter story,” says Lee-Roche, “but I also love the magical/medieval/Victorian aesthetic.”

Nearly Headless Nick and the Bloody Baron might feel at home in Blackburn Academy’s graveyard.

Blackburn Academy

Lee-Roche is quick to admit that he is not a teacher by trade and that his classes are more entertainment than education. Still, they aren’t all smoke and invisibility cloaks either: Care of Magical Creatures 101, for instance, allows students to handle live snakes, rats, tarantulas, frogs and a bearded dragon.

Care of Magical Creatures 101 allows students to handle live snakes, rats, tarantulas, frogs and a bearded dragon.

Blackburn Academy

Lee-Roche even offers an overnight version of his school, in which students (young ones, mostly) can crash in a Gryffindor-inspired dorm like Harry and his best friend Ron Weasley. The school is co-funded by Master Mortimer’s Magical Mercantile, an old-timey store where he sells a variety of magical implements he’s made himself, from wands to robes. His best-seller? Nonalcoholic butterscotch beer.

Lee-Roche envisions himself a Potter entrepreneur. “I want to make this larger scale,” he says, and claims to be eyeing other properties for expansion. Future plans include a larger feasting hall and even a walk down Diagon Alley. Can a Quidditch field be far behind?

Blackburn Academy students sitting down to a magical feast.

Blackburn Academy

The post Calling Harry Potter Fans: Build a Wizarding School in Your Own Home! appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2fX36E5