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Slim pickings: World's narrowest house which is crammed into an alleyway is just 60 INCHES wide and hasn't even got room for stairs

By Daily Mail Reporter


If you're looking for somewhere with plenty of room, it'll be slim pickings at what architects of this new home are claiming is the narrowest property in the world.

The home - complete with bedroom, lounge, bathroom and kitchen - is just under 60inches wide and is so narrow that the builders have abandoned a traditional staircase in favour of a ladder.

Each of the four storeys goes back nearly 40ft with a room on each floor of the apartment, crammed into an alley between an old tenement block and a tower block in Warsaw, Poland.

World's narrowest house which is crammed into an alleyway is just 60 INCHES wide and hasn't even got room for stairs 3
Thin: The house is being built in an alleyway between two tower blocks and the architects claim that it will be the narrowest house in the world when it's finished


‘I saw the gap and just thought it needed filling. It will be used by artists,’ said architect Jakub Szczesny.

The first resident will be Israeli writer Etgar Keret after British historian Norman Davies turned down the chance to live there.

The world's official narrowest house, The Wedge, on the island of Great Cumbrae off Scotland’s North Ayrshire coast, measures just 47 inches at the front - but spreads to 22ft as it moves back from the road.

World's narrowest house which is crammed into an alleyway is just 60 INCHES wide and hasn't even got room for stairs 2
Cramped: British historian Norman Davies turned down the chance to live there, but Israeli writer Etgar Keret has jumped at the chance to squeeze in


It was sold as a holiday home in 2000 for £27,000.

‘Ours is the same all the way through, so we are narrower for longer,’ said one of the Polish design team.

Another house that has hit the headlines for lacking width can be found in Brighton.

The house owned by Iain and Rachel Boyle is only 6ft wide and 21ft from front to back.

World's narrowest house which is crammed into an alleyway is just 60 INCHES wide and hasn't even got room for stairs 1
Thin end of The Wedge: The narrowest house in Britain can be found on the island of Great Cumbrae (left), while the Boyle family rent out a home in Brighton that measures just six feet across (right)

The couple, who run a publishing business, bought the building in the Hollingdean area of the city for £8,000 13 years ago.

They spent another £15,000 turning it into a stylish pièd-a-terre and now rent it out.

America also has a famously slim property - 75 1/2 Bedford St in New York, which is a mere 9.5ft wide and 30ft deep.

It went on the market for $4.3million this May and was once home to Cary Grant, actor John Barrymore, poet Edna St Vincent Millay and cartoonist William Steig - none of whom, clearly, ever suffered from claustrophobia.

Now a well-known stop-off on the tourist trail in Bohemian Greenwich Village, its fame is a far cry from its past use as a shoemaker's shop and a sweet factory.


source:dailymail