Evergreen Villa

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, or a mansion by its façade for that matter. But that is exactly what you’re gonna do when you see Meaf’s Evergreen Villa. Your first thought when you lay eyes on this moody, Gothic structure tucked in the cool embrace of a thick pine forest will assuredly be, ‘yup, vampires live here.’ Fancy, stinking rich, blood sucking vampires.

But there are no vampires here (sigh). Just an MTVictorian Cribs-style mansion that will make you believe something magical might live here.

And it’s not that hard to understand why, as Meaf explains.

“I tend to build things that incorporate a lot of influence from older architectural styles, classical, Victorian, and Baroque. But my two absolute favorite styles are Baroque/neoclassical and Gothic. Both incorporate this kind of intricate and extravagant level of detail that looks fantastical when seen in real life.”

So Meaf took real life fantasy, added it to Minecraft’s boundless creativity engine, and the result was something truly magical. He explained to me that a desire to “take advantage of the unlimited creative resources Minecraft offered,” is what pushed him into creative builds.

“I began with an interest in architecture and realism,” he says. “After building in that realistic genre for a while, perfecting numerous kinds of styles, the limits of realism started to hold my creativity back. So I started building in the fantastic, to treat Minecraft and building as a form of art rather than simple architectural re-creation.”

Evergreen Villa is art, and art - good art - tells a story.

“Evergreen is a story about showing off,” he continues. “For the owners to show to the world the most magnificent and grand mansion in existence. From the statues, landscaping, and very detailed exterior.”

The statues are great! No discerning member of the Victorian gentry would be caught dead without a statue on their premises. Like how could you show your face during the Season without at least three?

“I crafted a ton of statues on the villa grounds: a deer, a dragon, an eagle. There’s a human soldier, an angel, and my favorite: the goose.”

Geese are the birds of the bourgeoisie. They go wherever they please and leave poop wherever they go. They’re also extremely territorial. A goose once hissed at me for just looking at it, so they’re the perfect metaphor for those snooty Downton Abbey types. Meaf tries to incorporate a goose into all of his builds, it’s like his calling card - an old joke shared between him and his friends - but hopefully with less territorial hissing.

Bougie birds aside, my favorite detail of the build was the forest and I had to ask him about it. Turns out it was his favorite too.

“I love the trees,” he explains, “because they add this whole new level of detail to the structure. In the beginning, I was working with a really basic WorldEdit plugin so I had to paste each tree in its individual spot. I’d have to fly, paste, fly again, and paste. Really tedious. I ended up using more than 30 different tree schematics, and 20 alone were just different variants of pine. Despite all that work, though, I would say the forest turned out pretty good.”

Pretty good is a bit of an understatement. Evergreen Villa’s flair and detail defy the eye. Meaf’s skill with a block makes this build look like a real life miniature you’d keep under glass at some museum exhibit on Baroque architecture.

And you know what they say: If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it.

Thank you, thank you. I’ll see myself out.

Renders by Antrelial, Kryiin, Killerack, MateoPaolini, Timothy C., and Skippy.