A 10-foot-wide House Was Built 'out Of Spite' On A Leftover Piece Of Land In Florida And Is Selling For $619,000. See Inside.
This 10-foot-wide house in Jacksonville Beach, Florida is on the market for $619,000.
Open House Optics
- A 10-foot-wide house was built on a lot in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
- If the neighborhood had its way, there wouldn't be a house there at all.
- It's being listed for $619,000 and has interest from those who want a low-maintenance lifestyle.
What was once an empty residual lot used as a garden by a neighbor is now a 1,547-square-foot home in Jacksonville Beach, Florida — only 10 feet wide.
The two-story house sits on a 25-foot wide lot (with a lot of depth) and even has space for a garage.
The listing agent, Ryan Wetherhold of Oceanside Real Estate, and builder, John Atkins, regularly build on these leftover lots and anticipated having a little more space for a home.
"What you can do on these smaller lots is you can go in front of a board of adjustment, and they'll allow you to build more than the building code is allowed," Wetherhold told Business Insider.
If the neighborhood had its way, there wouldn't be a house there at all. The neighborhood attended the public hearing voicing concerns — mainly from a next-door neighbor who used the untouched lot as a garden — and persuaded the board to disallow any adjustments.
"And to be honest, the builder almost built this out of spite just because of that fact, 'Oh, you don't think we can build, hold my beer,'" Wetherhold said.
They were stuck building a 10-foot-wide home instead of a 15-foot-wide home, but they still managed to attract buyers. Take a look inside.
Open House Optics
"We don't create our own subdivisions and build — typically, we build on lots that exist," he said. "In this particular neighborhood, which is typical of beach areas or areas of high density, you'll get some areas of smaller lots."
Open House Optics
The lots were all 25 feet wide, according to Wetherhold, but eventually, some owners started to combine lots together, leaving some uneven spacing.
Open House Optics
"They'll say, 'OK, you can build within the setbacks, you can build wider, you can build deeper, you can go up front,'" he said. "Typically, it's a fairly straightforward process."
Open House Optics
"What we were left with was to build within the building code, a modern building code that's been revised that's pretty conservative at 35% law coverage and seven-and-a-half-foot setbacks on each side," Wetherhold said. "So it made us build a 10-foot wide house. We had no other choice."
Open House Optics
"Had they understood the process better they would've worked with us to help us build a wider home," Wetherhold said. "But their whole idea was once the pot got served, 'We can stop it from being built,' which is counterintuitive because obviously that was not the case.
Open House Optics
While it is only 25 feet wide, the lot is 140 feet deep — deeper than some typical lots in the neighborhood, Wetherhold said.
Open House Optics
"You're not supposed to put floor area in them, but you can put seating area — so you're not able to stand on it, but you can do build-in seating," Wetherhold said. "We built a ton of built-in seating because it's narrow anyway. To try to put a couch in a 10-foot-wide house isn't really practical."
Open House Optics
"The builder's son did this really cool dining table that was made from boards from when our pier was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew," Wetherhold said, referring to the 2016 storm that destroyed a pier in Jacksonville Beach and caused damage throughout the Atlantic coast. "He kept all those boards and then made a dining room table front on it, which was a really cool thing."
Open House Optics
Wetherhold said he had a deal lined up within the first week, but it fell through.
Open House Optics
"We thought originally we'd be maybe $450,000 to $500,000, and then as it evolved and we started to see it come to fruition and actually walk through it and finish it out, it really felt better than the way it looked on paper," he said. "Ten feet wide does not sound appealing at all, but once you're inside, the typical room is maybe 12 to 15 feet wide.
Open House Optics
"I had an open house the weekend after the 'Zillow Gone Wild,' and it was a three-hour open house, and I probably had 300 people to 400 people — which is just unheard of."
Open House Optics
Wetherhold said the house is perfect for "a person that wants to be in a neighborhood of million-dollar homes but doesn't want a maintenance factor of that and still wants to be in a nice area and pay about half the price."
"And come to find out, we weren't sure if that was a niche that was out there, but sure enough it is," he added.
Popular Products
No popular products available in this category.