A la Ronde: English cousins built a home for women alone

In 18th-century Devon, England, Jane Parminter and her cousin Mary built A la Ronde, a sixteen-sided house intended to belong only to women.

Parminter designed the house after traveling in Europe, filling it with collections gathered on her trips, like a feather frieze and shell-covered gallery. The cousins also constructed a chapel, a school for local girls, and housing for single women, creating a self-sufficient community.

They attempted to secure the house’s future by stipulating in Mary’s will that it could only pass to unmarried female relatives. However, an heir changed the will in 1886, selling the property to her brother, Oswald Reichel, becoming the first male owner in two centuries. Reichel made changes to the building, replacing thatch with tiles and adding heating and plumbing, that likely preserved it.

After Reichel, the house passed back into the hands of women and eventually to the National Trust in 1991, which still owns it today. While the legal protections failed, the house itself remains standing.