I have heard of spite fences. I have heard of architectural holdouts. But spite houses are a new thing to me.
Spite fences are built by people who want to “spite” their neighbor, building a fence that often blocks the view of the unoffending neighbor or otherwise is designed to irritate him or her.
Here is a spite fence built by wealthy businessman Charles Crocker on San Francisco’s Nob Hill to frustrate German undertaker, Nicolas Yung, who owned the smaller house and refused to sell out:
An architectural holdout is a building whose owner refuses to sell out to a larger project. New York was at one time filled with these places in the 20th century; now, not so much. A typical architectural holdout is a cottage house with a modern hotel wrapped around it.
Now, I hear of spite houses, which seem a weird combination of spite fences and holdouts.
According to Wikipedia, in its spite house entry:
At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Alameda, California, took a large portion of Charles Froling’s land to build a street. Froling had planned to build his dream house on the plot of land he received through inheritance. To spite the city and an unsympathetic neighbor, Froling built a house 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, 54 feet (16 m) long and 20 feet (6.1 m) high on the tiny strip of land left to him. The Alameda Spite House is still standing and occupied.
