By Marguerite Gauron

Mention the word “Folly” in Jamaica and anyone from a baby to a centenarian will tell you about a house in Port Antonio that crumbled when a young American tried to carry his blushing bride over the threshold. The story goes on to explain that sea water mixed with concrete was to blame for the spontaneous collapse and the bride fled Jamaica, never to return.

Some forty years ago this preposterous story emanated from the vivid imagination of a Jamaica Tourist Board writer, employed to promote Folly as an attraction. This story had the opposite effect. Over the years scant interest was paid to the site.

However, the myth persisted – having been quoted on bookmarks, postcards and other souvenirs. It was Jamaican historian, Diane Robertson, who first exploded the myth in a newspaper article published 26 years ago. Since then, other writers, including myself, dug deeper and found that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but a whole lot more interesting!

Folly mansion, built and occupied in 1903, was the dream house of 71-year-old Alfred Mitchell of New London, Connecticut, and his wife of over 40 years – jewellery heiress, Annie Tiffany. As a seafaring man, Alfred had often sailed past Folly lighthouse into Port Antonio’s busy west harbour and he had many friends in Jamaica.

His wife’s vast fortune allowed them to acquire the vast property of over 100 acres, along with the 3-acre Woods Island, immediately off shore. Boston architects, Chapman and Fraser, designed the 60-room estate house as an adaptation of a Roman villa.

The house had two storeys and an extended basement, its own gravity-fed water supply and an electric generator. A causeway was constructed to Woods Island. The island soon became known as “Monkey Island” for the monkeys that frolicked there.

It was also home to an elaborate wind-powered generator that pumped fresh seawater daily to an indoor swimming pool – lined with Tiffany tiles – on the building’s lower floor. It said that the generator was perhaps the first of its kind to be constructed in the Caribbean.

It is said that Alfred and Annie spent their late afternoons on Wood’s Island and Annie did her knitting as they watched the sun slowly sinking in the west and the monkeys bedding down in the trees for the night.