Perched on top of a small, rocky island in Narragansett Bay, near Jamestown, Rhode Island, the United States, is a three-story, cedar shingle mansion built by Philadelphia socialite Joseph Lovering Wharton in 1905. Wharton had built the house as an act of defiance after the government seized his land and summer home that he had in the Fort Wetherill area in south Jamestown, to enlarge the fort at the end of the 1800s. Angered at being ousted from his property, Wharton decided to build a house where no one could bother him, and Clingstone happened. One source claims that the name "Clingstone" was suggested when someone remarked that it was "a peach of a house". Clingstone is a botanical term for fruits that has a hard stone-like seed inside. Or perhaps, the name is a reference to the way the house clings to the rock.

Photo credit: mansion-homes.com