Winery Hill

How I made a hill bigger and changed its shape...
When I built my first hill some years ago I did not yet have the model building that would grace the summit. I now have the Faller Schloß-Hotel winery building and so I can determine how large the base is - of course it is bigger than the hill I made so I have to make the top of the hill larger...

This red car has been parked here for years at the grassy knoll waiting for something to happen...


Here is the Faller catalog page showing the building that will go here:

I made a paper template showing the size of the building. The building also need access on two sides to load wine etc. so I decided the road would have to be extended up to the building.

I also decided to build stairs up to the Schloß and instead of having parking at the top, the customers would park lower down the hill and be brought up by horse-drawn wine cart...

I tried out the rough shape with Styrofoam, I have also cut the bank away for the base of the stairs. The white square lower right is the size of a small wine press that comes with the kit.

I have now added flyscreen to form the hill slope (which will be vineyards of course)
Since I am also about to get messy with dry-wall plaster I have also masked the wall off with plastic sheeting...

I have cut the main staircase into the bank and a cardboard template the same size as the building base has been pinned into place. This will allow the plaster to be brought right up to the edge of the building which is a paved walkway.

And cover it all with plaster....

(stairs are masked off with masking tape)

Undercoat has been painted. The bright green will be grass areas and the brown will be vineyards

I also added two retaining walls at the foot of the hill, I ran out of dry wall plaster and the white parts were not yet dry when I painted the undercoat so those areas will also be brown....

I got some more drywall joint compound so I could finish the last slope and paint everything, ready for the vines to be planted:

Ground level views give a better feel....

I may have some lounge chairs on the hotel lawn

Updates

Completed hill with hotel
The construction of the winery building is complete.
The entire hill was cut out of the layout when we moved house and is now on my second layout. It has being extended yet again. See https://cabin-layout.blogspot.com/2018/02/making-grape-vines.html