I miss there being a place like that too; haven't really had one since Bag End Under Hill, back in London, Ontario. (It was not much like a hobbit-hole, really, but the doorknob was in the middle of the front door, and that was enough for us.)

Ever since leaving Toronto, and thus going back to square one in terms of a social network - which is just awesome for a pair of introverts who don't drive - I've rather wished that someone would adopt us, in the way that persis seems to do with people; simply including us in a regular round of social activities that they have going. That hasn't really worked out either in Seattle or Madison, where we've been painfully piecing a network together a person at a time.