Man builds 10ft-wide house to spite nimby neighbours — take a look inside

In Florida’s overheated property market, even the smallest sliver of land can prove an attractive prospect for an enterprising developer. But it was not merely profit that motivated the builders of the latest extreme skinny home on the market: they were also determined to prove a point to the neighbours.

The home, measuring 10ft across by 80ft deep, in Jacksonville Beach went on the market last month for $619,000, and joins a list of other notable “spite houses” built to antagonise nimby (not in my back yard) neighbours.

Ryan Wetherhold, owner of Oceanside Real Estate, said he and the builder John Atkins had not planned to embark on such an extreme architectural experiment.

When they bought the 25ft-wide lot from another developer in 2021, they assumed they could successfully petition for a relaxation in building codes to allow for a more standard-sized house. The neighbours, however, had other ideas, and fought “tooth and nail” against plans to develop on one of the few remaining plots in the area, Wetherhold said.

“It got passed down from homeowner to homeowner — ‘that lot will never be built on … we’ll have this nice buffer between our house and the next house and will always have a place where I can take my dog to the bathroom, I can do my gardening in there’,” he said. “At the public hearing, normally you’ll have a few people talk — we had the entire neighbourhood come out and talk against it.”

The outcry had the opposite of its intended effect, however: it made Atkins even more determined to construct whatever he could get away with legally. “We wouldn’t have been down this path had there been a bit more back and forth,” Wetherhold said. “When people say, ‘You can’t do it, you can’t do it’, [Atkins] is like, ‘I’m going to do it in spite of you telling me I can’t do it’.”

The pair faced logistical challenges in creating a liveable home in such a narrow space. One hurdle was fitting in furniture, which they overcame by building alcoves that protrude from the sides of the house, allowing for built-in sofas and dining areas. Adding several windows and mirrored surfaces created the illusion of more space, while a good-sized garden boasts an outdoor shower and even space to construct a swimming pool.

The Jacksonville Beach property joins other skinny houses capturing attention, including a 6ft-wide house on the market in Washington DC.

Wetherhold said soaring house prices and demand in Florida means all available space should be put to use. “The demand has been as high as it’s ever been since I’ve been doing this in 22 years, so you have to get creative to figure out how to accommodate all these people,” he said.

The property also brings to mind some other American “spite houses”, including a 10ft-wide house in Alameda, California, built after the city commandeered some land to build a road…

…and a tiny pie-shaped house in Seattle that legend claims was built by a divorcee whose settlement left her with only the front yard.

Wetherhold said the neighbours in Jacksonville Beach were lucky they had embarked on a thoughtful build in keeping with the local character — they could have been even more spiteful. “Be careful what you ask for, because we looked at building a container-type home that would be multiple storeys,” he said. “You can do short-term rentals. You can do one-night rentals. It could have been a transient vacation rental property, which is not popular with the locals.”

There was a happy ending for the skinny house: it is under contract with a buyer, and the neighbours are all on board now. “They all love it because it is an eye-catcher,” Wetherhold said. “It looks like such a modern original home and it’s just a breath of fresh air walking through the neighbourhood.”