Southie roommates built a massive igloo that went viral on social media. Then the vandals showed up.

Local News

After nearly two weeks and more than 100 hours of work, their backyard masterpiece drew 40 million views — before two men took a sledgehammer to it.

A couple of South Boston roommates spent nearly two weeks creating a massive igloo in their backyard that captivated millions online — but the celebration didn’t last long. 

Jack Tarca, a photographer and founder of Find The Good Brand, moved in with four other roommates he’d met on Facebook in September. A few weeks later, while watching a news segment about families building miniature igloos out of cake pans, Tarca had an idea: Why not go bigger? 

Soon, Tarca and his roommates were freezing individual ice bricks in roughly 80 storage bins, often working past 3 a.m. and using wet snow as mortar. After 12 days and more than 100 hours of work, the final structure measured about 12 feet in diameter and 8.5 feet tall — big enough to comfortably fit 10 to 15 people. 

“This wasn’t too out of the ordinary for me,” Tarca said. “I’m always building things.” 

Videos of the build amassed more than 40 million views across social media, as he documented the journey day by day. 

While Tarca has worked with content creators before and understands how quickly posts can spread, the scale of the response surprised him, he said. 

Just a little over 60% of viewers were in the U.S., Tarca said, while the rest tuned in from around the world.

“That blew me away, because I thought it would be very local … but it just gained global traction,” he said. 

After day 12, the igloo became a neighborhood curiosity and an online sensation — but, in a matter of minutes, it was gone. 

Tarca recalled coming home from work Thursday night to find only three-and-a-half rows of the igloo still standing. 

“My heart just dropped,” he said.  

At first, Tarca and his roommates assumed warmer temperatures or a structural flaw had caused the collapse. But a neighbor told Tarca that she saw two men enter the backyard around 4:30 p.m. and strike the igloo with a sledgehammer and a metal pole. 

“When I went out there in the daytime, seeing it for the first time, it made total sense,” Tarca said. “It had such jagged edges, and you could even see the rust marks and the puncture marks from where they were hitting.” 

Tarca said he felt more sadness than anger. 

“The story was so positive. It had such good energy. And then to know that somebody took it the complete opposite way enough to where they came and destroyed it, I was definitely sad,” he said. 

The timing made it worse: One of Tarca’s roommates works as a professional lighting technician, and Tarca himself is a photographer. Because they believed they had the weekend to capture professional photos of the completed igloo, they put off the shoot. Now, only a handful of iPhone photos remain, Tarca said. 

As of rebuilding, Tarca said he would have started the next day if the weather wasn’t so warm. Still, he said the experience reinforced the message behind his company, which focuses on spreading positivity. 

“I’ll do more content creation, focusing on community and events and travel and showcasing good people, good places, and good stories,” Tarca said. 

“There’ll definitely be more to come. Probably not an igloo in the spring or summer,” he added with a laugh.

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