Hollensbury Spite House

Here follows an excerpt from the Atlas Obscura website:

Hollensbury Spite House
Alexandria, Virginia
The narrowest house in America is seven feet of pure spite.

Works of architecture are often a portal into the headspace of their creators, speaking a unique language of personality, moods, and obsessions. There are few places where this more visually apparent than at Alexandria, Virginia’s squat blue spite house. The two-century-old residence was a delicious poke in the eye to contemporary neighbors and has now become a beloved part of Old Town’s historic fabric.

The man in question here was a local brickmaker and city council member, John Hollensbury. From his nearby home on Queen Street, Hollensbury had a front row seat to a chaotic alley scene of loitering ruffians and dangerous cut through traffic. By 1830 the side of his home was pockmarked from all the collisions with wagons and Hollensbury decided he’d had enough.

In the modern day, the first instinct in a similar situation might be to complain to the police, your neighborhood listserve, or perhaps pursue legal action. Hollensbury had a refreshing streak of self reliance and simply began bricking off the alleyway in question. Two parallel walls and a roof transformed the former byway into a quaint addition to his personal residence. Ripley’s Believe it or Not dubbed it the narrowest house in America.

It’s unclear if any of this was permitted or legal back in 1830. Hollensbury’s seat on the Common Council might have given him the audacity to just build it without asking permission. However, because of the glorious power of Ex Post Facto law, the spite house has been grandfathered into the modern building code, and is presently occupied part of the year. From inside the living room you can still see the spots where wagons smashed against the brick walls and incited the fury of John Hollenbury.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website about the Hollensbury Spite House as written by Caroline Greer:

Introduction:
The Hollensbury Spite House is a seven-foot-wide blue townhome located on Queen Street in Old Town Alexandria. Built in 1830, the house was constructed by adding a roof and exterior to the two existing walls of the homes next door. The house is called a spite house because it was built simply to keep passersby from using the alleyway that the house now occupies.

Backstory and Context:
The Hollensbury Spite House stands on Queen Street in Old Town Alexandria, and at seven-feet-wide, 325 square feet, and two stories, is one of the skinniest houses in the United States. The blue townhome was built in 1830 by John Hollensbury, who the house is named for, a bricklayer who owned the two homes adjacent to the Spite House. The alleyway between Hollensbury's two homes was continuously being used as a shortcut for horse-drawn wagons, creating damage to the outside of the house, and also attracted loud and raucous people who congregated in the alley. Sick of the damage and the noise, Hollensbury created the tiny home by adding a roof and an exterior to the brick walls of the two adjacent homes; the gouges from wagons can still be seen on the walls of the house in the living room.

Privately owned and under the ex posto facto law regarding building code, one can still visit the house from the outside and take a nice photo for social media!