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Airplane House Keeps Marriage Grounded, if Not Wife
Said Jammal's labor of love for his wife began in 2002 but has not curbed her travel.
(By Craig Timberg -- The Washington Post)
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The work on the airplane began in 2002 and has moved slowly because Said Jammal insists on doing each phase by himself, despite a work schedule that keeps him frequently on the road. And though the airplane's interior remains unfinished, the exterior is nearing completion.
The plane is about 100 feet long and, at its highest point at the top of the tail, 20 feet tall. Eventually, the plane will have a 50-foot wingspan, Said Jammal said. Each wing already has two mounted engines and sits atop an unfinished bedroom and a small bathroom.
Inside the white fuselage, Said Jammal plans to build a kitchen and in a closed-off cockpit overlooking the city, a computer room.
Completion remains at least several months off.
"It's my personal house," he said. "I'm not in a hurry."
The Jammals have also built a two-story guard post in the shape of a control tower, and they plan to add a smaller replica of the plane on a guest cottage. On another plot of land on a nearby hill, they are contemplating building another house, this one in the shape of a yacht.
Though unfinished, the airplane house attracts a steady flow of unexpected visitors who knock at the Jammals' gate several times a month. The property's extravagance, meanwhile, has provoked some grumbling in a city where most houses are small.
"Some people will feel they are wasting cement," said James Ojobo, 43, who is unemployed.
But many passersby express affection for the project, even if they cannot fathom who would attempt it. The conventional wisdom along Murtala Mohammed Way, the four-lane highway that runs along the front of the airplane house a bit like a forsaken runway, is that a pilot owns it.
"Very strange, but nice. Very nice," said Adamma Mercy Pius, 23, who came here six months ago in search of work. "When I first came to Abuja, this building attracted me. I thought, 'Is this a real plane?' "
The Jammals say they have received inquiries from an airline interested in turning the plane into a giant winged billboard. For the right price, both said, they would be willing to sell.
After all, despite the attention it has generated, the airplane house has failed at one of its missions. Said Jammal revealed that when he decided to go ahead with the project, he had a secret motive to clip his wife's wings: "Let me build the airplane so that I can keep her in all the time."
To this, Liza Jammal smiled the kind of patient, indulgent smile that many wives save for their husbands' curmudgeonly moments. "It doesn't work," she said, thinking ahead to a planned trip to Singapore. "I'm going this weekend."
