This is the A la Ronde, a house built by cousins Jane and Mary Parminter in 1796. With its numerous windows scattered across its walls, this house never fails to see the light of day, literally!
On the outside, the house looks rather strange. But on the inside, it is magnificent.
The house… [consists] of 20 rooms distributed in three floors. The ground floor originally housed the staff quarters, the wine cellar, a strong room and the kitchen, while the first floor was for the ladies. At the center of the house is an octagonal hallway with eight doors leading into as many rooms arranged radially. The rooms are connected with each other so it’s possible to make a complete circuit of these rooms without entering the octagon itself. This was important, because Jane and Mary liked to move about from one room to another following the warmth of the sun. They would start with breakfast [in] the east-facing room and then move around to finish with tea in an oval room on the west in the evening.
But the house isn’t the only thing amazing in this story. How this house was passed on to its next owners was amazing, too.
Jane Parminter died in 1811 and was buried in the tiny chapel on land adjoining A la Ronde. Mary continued to live at A la Ronde until her death in 1849. Her will specifically stated that the property must be inherited only by “unmarried kinswomen”.
Until 1991, there was only one man who got to own the house, and that was when a woman named Stella Reichel made legal changes to the will, which allowed her brother, Reverend Oswald Reichel, to co-own the house. After that instance, the house went back once again to female hands.
Learn more about the A la Ronde over at Amusing Planet.
(Image Credit: xlibber/ Wikimedia Commons)