Jamaica Plain
Twelve-sided wooden house of interlocking hexagons, self-built by immigrant carpenters on blasted ledge rock.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to a twelve-sided wooden house in Boston's Jamaica Plain follows two Scottish immigrant carpenters who set out around 1870 to build their own version of a Scotch castle, blasting through solid ledge rock for the foundation and pitching a tent on the lot while they worked. You'll hear how they fit three interlocking hexagons into a single structure, down to the six-sided shingles and cupola they cut themselves, and how a quarry carved a deep drop into the same stone behind the house. It's a portrait of a private, obsessive piece of carpentry raised by two men whose full story never made it into the record.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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