What's a "spite house," you ask? It is exactly what it sounds like. For hundreds of years people have been really, really petty. In fact, people are so petty that they sometimes use all of their available resources just to make their neighbors seethe.
Spite houses are homes built specifically to make fellow citizens angry. The kind of angry where, every day, they wake up, open their blinds, look at their neighbor's house, and shake their fists toward the heavens. Fortunately, nowadays spiteful landowners get far less space for their money, and spite houses have gone out of trend. (Although spite statues are still in vogue.) But luckily we still have real, visceral spite — and a voodoo doll or two.
But the question is, who's the bigger tool? The person who built the spite house? Or the person whose actions were worthy of the spite house to begin with?
America, the beautiful.
The Skinny House
After the Civil War, two brothers inherited their father’s property. While one was away serving in the military, the other brother built a home on the majority of the land. When the brother returned and saw what his sibling had done, he built the four-story skinny house on the rest of the land. The home’s narrowest interior is 6.2 feet wide.
The Alexandria, VA Spite House
In 1830, the seven-foot wide house was built with the sole intent of blocking the alley between the two neighboring homes. The purpose: to prevent wagon and foot traffic.
The Adamsville, RI Spite Tower
The tower was built around 1905 to obscure the line of sight from a single town member. What on Earth must that person have done?
The Georgetown Spite House
In 1933, the owner built this 11-foot wide home between two larger houses with the specific goal of shutting out light and air from the neighboring windows. Suffocate in darkness!
The Alameda Spite House
The city of Alameda, CA took a portion of Charles Froling’s land at the turn of the 20th Century. Froling was (reasonably) not happy about this. He was planning on building his dream house with the land he had inherited. With the little real estate left, he built a house 10 feet deep, 54 feet long and 20 feet high.
The Montlake Spite House
In 1925, a 55-inch wide and 15-foot tall home was built specifically to block its neighbor’s view when they refused to purchase the land.
The McCobb Spite House
After a long absence, Thomas McCobb returned home in 1806 only to discover that the family’s mansion had been left to his stepbrother. To spite him, McCobb built an extravagant home directly across the street.
The Tyler Spite House
The city of Frederick, MD wanted to extend a road southbound — directly through Dr. John Tyler’s land in 1814. He was more than miffed. So, to prevent the city from paving through his property, he immediately hired workers to pour building foundation. Today, if you’re ever on Record Street in Frederick, you’ve got to go east or west — south will have you crashing directly into The Tyler Spite House.
The O’Reilly Spite House
In 1908, Francis O’Reilly owned a small parcel of land. He figured he’d sell the small section to the land’s neighbor but the neighbor refused. So he built an eight-foot wide house just to show him!
The Old Spite House of Marblehead, MA
The Marblehead spite house is a mere ten feet wide. The rumor about its 1716 origins says that the owner, upset with the tiny share of real estate his father left him, built an obnoxiously small home on the land. A home that was too thin for comfort but just tall enough to block the view of his brother — who had inherited a bigger portion of property.
The Freeport Spite House
In the 19th century, developer John Randall did not want Freeport, NY to convert to a grid system. Overnight, he built a Victorian House smack dab in the middle of the grid to spite the grid designers.
The Richardson Spite House
In 1882, Joseph Richardson offered his plot of land to Hyman Sarner for $5,000. Sarner didn’t think the land was useful, but agreed to buy it for $1,000. Richardson refused the price and, out of spite, built an entire apartment complex. The building was four stories tall and 104 feet wide but only 5 feet deep.
