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Secret garden

Known as “the cloister garden,” the walled area at the center of St. Mary’s Hall, Boston College’s main Jesuit residence, was built as part of the 1930 addition to the building that also added a south wing. The 1930 garden featured a three-story covered cloister walk built during the presidency of James H. Dolan, SJ, where priests could read their breviaries, a set of prayers for various times of the day. The cloister walk, which came to be called “Dolan’s Folly” because it was rarely used, was removed in 1981 when St. Mary’s garage was built to house cars belonging to the residents. Joe Killilea, a self-described “jack-of-all-trades” at St. Mary’s who has tended the garden for 35 years, says the sumac and hemlock trees have been there since 1930 and that he regularly populates the garden with geraniums, impatiens, chrysanthemums, and other flowers. Visible in this photograph is a small service door leading to the basement, a 10-foot-high stone wall that was part of the cloister, and a staircase leading to the hall’s first floor. In the center is a fountain adorned with a sculpture of the Virgin Mary. In summer, the hall’s 73 Jesuit residents use the garden for barbecues.