LITTLETON • After following the stone path to the storybook cottage, I step through the carved round door, as if walking into a fairy tale.

A tree stands at the heart of the earthen playhouse, surrounded by caramel wooden panels embellished with paintings and mystical decorations. Light peeks through the sunroofs and porthole windows, adding luster to the space no bigger than a shed. For a second, it would seem completely normal if a fairy flew through the hatch to greet me — or ask me to leave her home.

It’s Rudi Monterroso’s first build. It’s in his backyard garden — a quaint, storybook-style house he made for his children 16 years ago.

The whimsical cottage welcomed them as they progressed from baby toys to Barbie dolls. Now, it serves as a reading nook or place to get away.

Monterroso is the mind behind whimsical, Hobbit-like playhouses that he makes by hand at his home in Littleton. The colorblind artist, who works during the week as an art and Spanish teacher, spends his free time creating these quirky gateways for children and adults alike.

No two creations are the same. Handmade from wood and upcycled materials, Monterroso’s signature style is reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit houses from “The Lord of the Rings.” Moss and fairy lights often line the structure, with ornately carved doors and stone details.

Using repurposed materials is key to his process, trying to avoid creating waste. Even his studio is made from the shell of an old airplane. It also lets him experiment with different materials, he said, telling of a time he used about 170 secondhand plastic buckets to create a Mexican-style shingle roof for a playhouse. The intricately designed covering is still in great shape more than five years later, he said proudly.

Starting with the wooden base, it takes Monterroso a week or two to create the foundation, he said. He sometimes creates a masonry stone look on the base with wood: cutting it, sealing it, painting it, texturing it and painting it again, he explains.

“It’s an insane amount of labor that a lot of people would not be willing to do,” he said.

He’s fascinated by Gothic and fairy-tale architecture, but has a special fondness for strange angles and round doors.

“There is something magical about a round door,” he said. “I love the Hobbit doors, because I feel like going through a round door is almost like going through a portal of imagination. And once you are inside the portal, it’s up to you what happens, and it is just something unique.”

The labor is really in the details, though. He describes the meticulous process of finding the small pieces that make each design unique, like little red mushrooms he used to frame the doorway in one project, or the tiny bird nest filled with blue eggs he put on another.

The houses are not just meant for kids. He shows one moss-roof camper that his family uses, designed like a storybook barrel. The circular doorway is framed by intertwining branches and greenery. Pointed arched windows and faux-stain glass provide natural light, and on the inside, a table that can be turned into a bed. Maybe the best part — the solar-powered kitchen and heater.

You’re probably wondering — how much would one of these put you back? Well, Monterroso has a range of prices, trying to make the playhouses accessible while also earning a fair wage. Small indoor houses can range from $600-$900. The stand-alone outdoor houses range depending on size. For example, a 4-foot-by-4-foot might cost between $4,000-$6,000, but a large 4×8 could run you upward of $12,000.

“What highlights my work from other people is the quality of detail that I put as an artist, not as a builder, and the imagination that I put in each piece of it,” he said.

To do so, he brings his inner child to the table.

Growing up poor in civil war-torn Guatemala during the 1990s, Monterroso didn’t have a box of toys to peruse. To play, he would make his own knickknacks out of wood and explore with his imagination, which allowed his creativity to blossom, he said.

Behind his childhood home by the beach, he remembers how he and his friends would build little structures. To the aged eye, the shelters might have looked rugged — piles of sticks and debris hardly made to stand — but to Monterosso and his friends, they were towering stone castles and mysterious fairy houses where they would play for hours.

Soon, the makeshift playhouses started to attract other kids and their wondrous imaginations.

“Me being one of the oldest kids, I realized that I was creating this safe haven for younger kids,” Monterroso said. “They felt safe and got to be kids for a couple hours, and to the point that they even felt that these structures were bulletproof. Nothing will happen to them. They just felt safe.”

That magic — the way a playhouse can transport someone to somewhere far away or within the depths of imagination — is at the heart of Monterroso’s artistry. He’s worked as an artist for the past 30 years, moving to Colorado from Boston in 2004 and later graduating from Metropolitan State College of Denver with a bachelor’s in fine arts, sculpture.

Before he turned his focus to playhouses, he painted — most notably with his feet.

After developing tendinitis and carpal tunnel to the point where he could no longer hold brushes, he decided to combine two familiar mediums: movement and paint. As a retired flamenco dancer, he performed on canvas.

“It started mostly as a process for meditating, and then I started showing my work and doing live demonstrations,” he said.

Invited three times as the Artist of the Month at the Denver Art Museum, his art career catapulted around 2019. He had 20 shows planned throughout the summer of 2020. But, as you might have guessed, things took a turn, as it did for many when the pandemic closed galleries and canceled shows. For Monterroso, he was also laid off his teaching job he had been at for 11 years.

Depressed and worried he had missed the peak of his career, he was unsure of what to do next. Thinking about how disconnected the pandemic made children from the outside world, he decided to share some of his art — including the Hobbit houses — to spread some whimsy.

While Monterroso made a couple of these Hobbit playhouses for friends over the years, he dove into making them during the pandemic as a way to create and make up for lost income.

He also wanted to spread some positivity with some public installations, starting with a walking path behind his house. With large paintings of flowers, mushrooms and forest critters, along with several Hobbit doors, he hoped to inspire a sense of whimsy to those around him.

“The idea was for kids to come and try to look for them, like a scavenger hunt,” he said, walking along the green space and pointing at his pieces. “There is a raccoon all the way down there. There is a rat. There’s a dragonfly. … There were animals all around the fences, and kids had to find them and have fun. It brought a lot of people from the community here.”

Soon, neighbors started to add their little pieces to what was becoming a walkable art garden, leaving behind trinkets and setting up chairs. During the summer, they started hosting movie nights, and in the fall, a jack-o-lantern walk. Teenagers will play guitar off a little landing Monterroso made from clay, and families will come down to picnic under the shade of the trees.

Neighbor Patrice Thomas has commissioned several pieces from Monterroso, starting with three large poppy flowers near the start of the COVID pandemic. She found his work at a local art show, not realizing they lived only a couple houses apart until several years later.

“With pretty much everything he does, he’s so very — he’s so incredibly creative,” Thomas said.

Since commissioning the flowers, Monterroso has also completed a front yard installation for Thomas as well as paintings of two herons, which she added to the community walkway. She’s enjoyed seeing the space grow, and often joins in the local potlucks.

“It didn’t start out as a really beautiful walkway, because of a drainage ditch back there and there was just a little tiny path,” she said.

“He started creating this space out there, and he just kept planting and growing it, then he kept adding things up and down with people who were participating in it. And it’s just become really a special community. He’s very kind, and he’s a welcoming person. And we go down there and have a (potluck) and just enjoy each other’s company.”

“As an artist, I try to be engaged with my community and give back and create magic,” he said.

And create magic he does.

“Those memories will last forever. No toy that you can give to a child can achieve what a playhouse does,” he said.

“It’s funny, because most of the people that have purchased my playhouses are people who had a playhouse when they were young, and they know the importance of those magical spaces.”