The skinniest house in the U.S. is a historic “spite house.”

  • Spite house in Alexandria, Virginia
Spite house in Alexandria, Virginia
Credit: Elizabeth Lankes/ Alamy Stock Photo

In 1830, brickmaker John Hollensbury lived in a handsome two-story home in what’s now the Old Town district of Alexandria, Virginia. He had one small problem, however. There was an alley about 7.5 feet wide running down one side; horse-drawn carriages would try to squeeze through and end up scraping against his wall, and loiterers would mill about in the area. Hollensbury’s drastic solution? Fill in the alley with a very, very small house to spite the riffraff outside.

This is how the Alexandria Spite House was born — not to create something, but to take something away. But regardless of Hollensbury’s motivations, he built a cute, functional, two-story home, albeit one that’s wedged in so tight that the neighbors’ exterior brick walls serve as its interior walls. It stretches around 25 feet back into the alley, and has a 325-square-foot interior spread out over two stories. The first floor has a sitting area and a small kitchen. Upstairs, there’s a small bedroom and bathroom with a clawfoot tub.

The diminutive home’s creature comforts are ample enough that people have used it as a long-term primary residence. One couple even lived there for the better part of 25 years. The most recent owner purchased it in 1990 for $130,000; as of 2008, he used it as a pied à terre.

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