Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1883 — A CURIOUS HOUSE. [ARTICLE]

A CURIOUS HOUSE.

The Narrowest Residence Ever Erected in the World. , [From the New York Evening Poet.] The narrowest house in this city may be seen at the northwest corner of Lex* ington avenue land Eighty-second street. When Lexington avenue was cut through some years ago, a strip of land five feet wide and 100 feet deep was all that was left of a certain lot belonging to a person who did not own the next lot on the street. The strip, while of little value by itself, would be valuable to the person owning the adjoining lot on Eighty-seeond street, because it . would not only allow him to build a house five feet wider, but would give him windows all along the side of his house on Lexington avenue. The two owners, however, could not agree as to terms, and a house was erected on the lot adjoining. the narrow strip. The owner of the latter had nothing to do but to abandon his lot, or build a house five feet wide upon it. The latter oourse was perhaps adopted because such a house would shut up all the side windows of the neighboring building, and considerably reduce its value. The new building is, therefore, 5 feet wide, 100 feet deep and four stories high. It is divided* into two houses, each 50 feet long, and the entrance doors are, of course, on the avenue, as there is no room for a door at either end of the building. The law allows a building at a corner of a street to have projecting bay-windows along the side, and, taking advantage of this circumstance, the architect had managed to plan a house*which, while in inside appearance, and probably very uncomfortable to live in, may find tenants. Without these bay windows, or square projections, running from the foundation to the roof, it would not have been possible to build a house at all, for no room would have been wider than three feet. Each house has, therefore, two bay-windows, in one of which are the stairs, and in the other one room about eight feet wide by fifteen feet long, upon each floor. The long passage between the stair well and the room is about three feet wide. Each house contains a kitchen eight by fifteen feet, and four rooms, each of the same size, but on different floors. There are also ingeniously-placed closets at each end of the building and under the stairs. If the object of the builder of these extraordinary houses was simply to shut out the light from his neighbor’s building, he would probably have accomplished the same end, at much less expense, by adopting Mr. George Kemp’s device of sheet-iron shields. Mr Kemp did not wish the occupants of the building in the rear of his house at No. 720 Fifth avenue to overlook his premises, and so he built an iron scaffolding in, his back yard, and placed iron shields against the obnoxious openings, shutting out air and light as* completely as a brick yrall would have done. This arrangement has been for years the source of no little commeijt from the neighbors and passers-by.