page_title: Spite house
section_title: Examples
hierarchical_section_title: Spite house / Examples
caption_attribution_description: The Tyler Spite House at 112 Church Street, located opposite Record Street, Frederick, MD
context_page_description: A spite house is a building constructed or substantially modified to irritate neighbors or any party with land stakes. Because long-term occupation is not the primary purpose of these houses, they frequently sport strange and impractical structures.
  Spite houses may create obstructions, such as blocking out light or blocking access to neighboring buildings, or can be flagrant symbols of defiance. Although homeowners generally have no right to views, light, or air, neighbors can sue for a negative easement. In instances regarding a spite build, courts are far more likely to side with the neighboring parties which may have been affected by that build. For example, the Coty v. Ramsey Associates, Inc. case of 1988 ruled that the defendant's spite farm constituted a nuisance, granting the neighboring landowner a negative easement.
  Spite houses, as well as spite farms, are considerably rarer than spite fences. This is partially attributable to the fact that modern building codes often prevent the construction of houses likely to impinge on neighbors' views or privacy, but mostly because fence construction is far cheaper, quicker, and easier than home construction.
context_section_description: In 1716, Thomas Wood, a sailmaker, built a house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, that subsequently became known as the Old Spite House. One possibility is that it was inhabited by two brothers who occupied different sections, would not speak to each other, and refused to sell to the other. Another explanation is that the ten foot (3 meter) wide house, just tall enough to block the view of two other houses on Orne Street, was built because its owner was upset about his tiny share of his father's estate and therefore decided to spoil his older brothers' view. The Old Spite House is still standing and occupied.
  In 1806, Thomas McCobb, heir to his father's land and shipbuilding business, returned home to Phippsburg, Maine, from sea to discover that his stepbrother Mark had inherited the family "Mansion in the Wilderness". Upset about his loss, McCobb built a house directly across from the McCobb mansion to spite his stepbrother. The National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey photographed and documented the 1925 move of the McCobb Spite House by barge from Phippsburg to Deadman's Point in Rockport, Maine.
  In 1814, Dr. John Tyler, an eminent ophthalmologist and one of the first American-born physicians to perform a cataract operation, owned a parcel of land near the courthouse square in Frederick, Maryland. The city made plans to extend Record Street south through Tyler's land to meet West Patrick Street. In fighting the city, Tyler discovered a local law that prevented the building of a road if work was in progress on a substantial building in the path of a proposed road. To spite the city, Tyler immediately had workmen pour a building foundation, which was discovered by the road crews the next morning.
  In 1830, John Hollensbury's home in Alexandria, Virginia, was one of two houses that directly bordered an alley that attracted an annoying amount of horse-drawn wagon traffic and loiterers. To prevent people from using the alleyway, Hollensbury constructed a 7-foot (2.1 m) wide, 25-foot (7.6 m) deep, 325-square-foot (30.2 m²), two-story home using the existing brick walls of the adjacent homes for the sides of the new house. The brick walls of the Hollensbury Spite House living room have gouges from wagon-wheel hubs, and the house is still standing and occupied.
  The Skinny House in Boston is considered a spite house. One story of its creation tells that in 1874, two brothers in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, got into a dispute. Each had previously inherited land from their deceased father. While the second brother was away serving in the military, the first brother built a large home, leaving the soldier only a shred of property that the first brother felt certain was too tiny to build on. When the soldier returned, he found his inheritance depleted and built a wooden house at 44 Hull St. to spite his brother by blocking the sunlight and ruining his view. The outside of the house spans 10.4 feet (3.2 m) and tapers to 9.25 feet (2.82 m) in the rear.
  In 1880, Adam Schilling owned a tract of 80 acres (32 ha) adjoining the town of Hiawatha, Kansas. Schilling sold three-quarters of an acre of this land, on which a house eventually was built and became owned by James Falloon. Together, the 80 acres (320,000 m²) were well-suited to add to the town of Hiawatha, but Falloon refused to sell his three-quarters of an acre at the low price Schilling offered. To spite his neighbor, Schilling then built a cheap tenement house on his own property 13 feet (4.0 m) from Falloon's with the "idea of rendering Falloon's home obnoxious and unendurable to Falloon and family" by renting to people Falloon might find objectionable.
  The Richardson Spite House in New York City at Lexington Avenue and 82nd Street was built in 1882 and demolished in 1915. It was four stories tall, 104 feet (31.7 m) wide, and only five feet (1.5 m) deep. Joseph Richardson, the owner of the plot, built it after the owner of an adjacent plot, Hyman Sarner, unsuccessfully tried to purchase the land. Sarner considered the plot useless by itself and offered
caption: The Tyler Spite House in Frederick, Maryland. It is located at the southern terminus of Record Street
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