October the 20th, 2025 – There’s an utterly bizarre house inside another house in Bol on Brač, and it’s by far the oddest construction in all of Dalmatia.
As Putni kofer/Martina Hrupic writes, beautiful Bol is a truly special place. Located on one of the most beautiful Croatian islands and Dalmatia’s largest, Brač, Bol is an ideal summer destination. It has earned global fame thanks to the incredible Zlatni rat (Golden horn) beach, seeing this place become a corner of Croatia that often adorns postcards and glossy international magazines and websites. However, Bol also has more hidden, but equally fascinating corners. One of them is Paloc, the absolutely strange house inside a house.
Paloc, or the “house inside a house” in Dalmatia is one of the most unusual architectural sights in the country and definitely the oddest place in Bol. It’s a protected cultural monument, and besides its intriguing appearance, a very unusual story of resistance, perseverance and greed is woven into its ancient stone. That story’s main characters are Marko and the wealthy Vuković family. Paloc is quite literally a house that is surrounded by another house, or rather the walls of an entirely unfinished, much more magnificent old stone building.
The beginnings of the story date back to the 19th century. Marko was a man of very strong will and was also a bit of a quarrelsome, conflicted character. He lived in a small house that caught the eye of the wealthy Vuković family. According to one version of the story, the land on which his house stood belonged to the Vuković family. According to another, it didn’t, but the Vuković family wanted to acquire the land whatever the case was.
The Vuković family had six brothers within it. Three were priests, and the other three were sea captains. The latter three also owned a large ship, and on their travels they ended up marrying three Spanish women and wanted to build a much larger building, a kind of palace, or Paloc, in which they’d all live. This was actually on the site where Marko’s house already stood.
They first tried to buy the house from Marko, but it wouldn’t even hear of such a suggestion. Tensions only intensified, and the brothers also turned to the mayor of the town, who tried to convert Marko to their way of thinking. That didn’t work either, and now Marko’s frustration and eventual anger turned towards the mayor, whom he had threatened, allegedly with death.
The worried mayor decided to imprison Marko, but he ended up escaping. The Vuković family then decided to take advantage of this opportunity and, since Marko wasn’t there, they began to construct their own property around Marko’s house. When Marko found out about this, he returned home to Bol carrying four barrels of gunpowder. With the help of his local friends, he decided to blow up the newly built walls, but he was discovered in his plan and had to flee yet again.
The Vuković brothers were also away, having gone over to Venice to obtain the materials they needed to complete their house in Bol. However, on the way, their ship got caught in a storm and all three of them were swallowed up, consumed by the waves. It was also the end of their lineage, as the Vukovićs had no heirs. After their deaths, Marko returned to his house and lived there until the end of his natural life, surrounded by the walls of a larger, never-completed palace…
Bol is otherwise the most famous and oldest coastal town on the entire island of Brač. It’s globally adored for its beautiful Zlatni rat beach, which can be seen from the highest peak of the island of Brač, Vidova gora. The beach is made of fine gravel and, thanks to its beauty, is a magnet for visitors, with its shape actually altering with the harsh Dalmatian winds of autumn and winter. Most people who visit Bol go just for the beach and its other coastal amenities, having no idea of Marko and his extremely strange house saga. Next time you’re there, make sure to peek through the windows of the house inside a house, the oddest building in all of Dalmatia.
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