In this otherwise Muggle neighborhood, the streets have magical names -- drawn from Harry Potter
When the Muggles who live in the Windsor Park subdivision speak of their neighborhood, they don’t use its given name. They always call it Potterville.
That’s because names of its streets (on the west side of Missoula, Montana) are drawn from the wildly popular Harry Potter series of books and movies. In the photo at the top, for example, from Google Street View, you can see the intersection of Potter Park Loop and Hermione Lane.
(Click here or on a photo to see the Muggle houses of Potterville -- where streets are named for Harry Potter, but everything else is Muggle through and through.)
“My husband may have maybe rolled his eyes a little bit when he realized what we were getting into,” said Jennifer Piippo, who lives on Potter Park Loop. She’s a fourth-grade teacher and is well-versed in the intricacies of the seven-book franchise.
The developers came up with the Harry Potter theme on a whim, though they didn’t know much about the popular books. They held an informal contest among the J.K. Rowling readers in their office and got back a long list of submissions.
“What we had to do was find out what some of these words meant,” said Collin Bangs, a Prudential Missoula real estate agent who co-developed the subdivision about a decade ago. “You didn’t want the ones that meant ‘the street of doom’ or something like that.”
There was one gaffe, though, and it made a local paper: Street signs misspelled Hermione.
Piippo noticed and got the sign fixed by Bangs and his business partner, Dave Edgell of Edgell Building and Development. From Piippo’s house, she often sees visitors pose for pictures under the intersection of Hermione Lane and Potter Park Loop, she said.
The 200-home midpriced neighborhood is just being completed, and plans are in the works to host a celebration of Harry Potter’s birthday next summer, Piippo said. Better start brewing the butterbeer.
Related on Zillow Blog:
• Beyond Main: How Streets Get Their Names
• Homes for Sale on Famous Streets
• Hogwarts-Worthy Homes in the U.S.
