Not for the claustrophobic
Image: Odd New England
This is 44 Hull Street, the narrowest house in Boston. It measures just 10.5 feet in width and 36 feet in length, with ceilings standing only 6 feet, 4 inches high and an entrance that leads into an alleyway because the street-facing wall is too slim for a door.
Folklore has it that the house was built in the eighteenth century by gentleman who, upon returning from a trip abroad, discovered that his brother had occupied almost all of the property left to them both by their parents by constructing a large house. In retaliation, he built his house on the narrow amount of land that was left unused, thus blocking his sibling's view and just generally causing a nuisance.
posted by Joyce Jun'r at 1:33 PM
5 Comments:
Is the place still occupied? It appears that it is.
Nice picture. In Baltimore we have a place that is even narrower. It is in the Federal Hill district and measures just under nine feet in width. It is known locally as "the Little House." I would include a picture if I knew how to do so. Here's a link to a write up on it in the Baltimore City Paper.
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=8573
Oh, yes, yr humble correspondent forgot to note that the house is still occupied. Must make for difficult moving.
Have our humble correspondent seen this? Nice plug for Bostonia, but Baltimore tries to outdo fair Boston with an even slimmer abode.
I used to live down the street from that house. right across from the copp's hill burial ground. the story in the neighborhood then was that the house was built by a rival ship captain to block the view of the harbor from the house behind it.
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