One owner, the real estate magnate William Rudin, had erected a cofferdam that jutted into the sea, blocking public passage along the shore.

In 1833, a new owner erected the Forest Inn to accommodate the increasing number of people.

In a rush of understandable enthusiasm, the owners erected a huge sign on the roof of the place proclaiming their signal achievement to the world.

But by November 2004, when the state moved to condemn the site, the owners had erected a building on the lot.

What commonly happens, he said, is that one owner erects a fence, a wall or an outbuilding on a neighbor's property, often unwittingly.

Irate owners erected fences to keep out the children and the dogs, and this at once became an insult and a challenge.

Other owners erect towers atop old buildings, often echoing the existing architecture - or perhaps redoing the building from its new top down to its old bottom.

When one of those houses changed hands, the new owners erected an oversized flagpole in the small yard beside their front steps.

The store moved two doors uptown in 1958 when the owner of the corner location razed the building and erected a new one.

Their property included no tillable land, and the original owner apparently erected the barn to house a couple of horses and some chickens.