| |
Close up of dry fieldstone wall, Stone wall, 2008
Nick O'Hara (b. 1954)
Sudbury, Massachusetts
Field stones
Courtesy of O'Hara & Company, Ltd.
Photography by Billy Howard
|
|
Dry fieldstone walls are a distinctive feature of the Massachusetts landscape. Most were built hundreds of years ago by farmers who had to clear their land for plowing. Piling up rock boulders, they created freestanding walls without the use of mortar to mark property or contain livestock.
O'Hara & Company specializes in dry fieldstone walls with indigenous boulders carefully harvested from farmland and forest. Building a handsome, stable, and gap-free stone wall requires incredible strength and an artistic eye. Few gaps are left between the stones. This is difficult to achieve when you are working with round yet irregularly shaped rocks. One stonemason described building dry fieldstone walls as "trying to put a bunch of basketballs together." Over the past twenty years, these walls have become increasingly popular in high-end residential neighborhoods.
|
 |
|
