Pie-shaped 15ft tiny home is only 15 inches wide - and almost 100 years old
A pie-shaped tiny home in Seattle is full of surprises despite its tiny stature, according to the home's newest residents, who have moved into the 100-year-old structure that's just 55-inches wide.
The house has a reputation for being built out of spite - but the home's newest owner, Kirsten Dirksen, says that it's more than just pettiness that resulted in this structure. There's a long and sordid history that many fail to mention when they talk about this particular house in Montlake, in Seattle.
The one-of-a-kind house is 'cheese wedge shaped' and fits perfectly behind a much larger home. Local legends actually have two backstories for this house. One story is that the person who lived in the property's main house wanted to buy the triangle-shaped piece next to the house. Apparently, they made such a low offer that the owner of the small plot not only didn't sell, he or she built the odd-shaped home to block his views.
The new owner, showing off the bedroom, which a surprisingly normal size (kirstendirksen/Youtube)But the more popular story has to do with a husband and wife, and the state of their divorce, which would have taken place 100 years ago. Rumour has it that the former wife built the "cheese-wedge-shaped" home to block the view of her ex-husband, who still resided in the bigger home on the shared lot.
While plenty of laws exist now to stop such structures from being built, there was a lot more freedom 100 years ago to do what you want with land. And while everyone calls it the 'spite house,' referring to the wife's reaction to the divorce, the home's new owner appreciates the history behind it.
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A home that looks like a 'slice of cheese' in Seattle has a new owner, according to YouTube (kirstendirksen/Youtube)"We forget that there were limitations," the home's current owner, Kirsten Dirksen said in a video posted on YouTube. "Women didn't have the same choices when it came to property ownership or home ownership and a lot of the tools that you would use to build a home or buy a home back then weren't available – so maybe she got creative," she said.
Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974, women in the U.S. couldn't get loans to buy homes. It was also much harder to find adequate employment that would pay for a mortgage, much less all of the other stipulations that come with home ownership. Dirkensen points out that divorce wasn't an option for most couples for that reason, and when a women lashed out, like in this case, it was labelled "spite".
"So it's entirely possible, I imagine, she went, 'Well, I own it, and therefore I'm going to use it because I don't have a whole lot of other choices.' That's my guess, and that wouldn't be dumb," she said. Stories say that the judge presiding in the divorce granted the husband the main part of the house and a sliver of the property - the 3,090-square-foot front yard - to the wife.
The door is on the narrowest side, but from there, the rooms get larger (kirstendirksen/Youtube)The home itself has two stories, two full-sized bedrooms and bathrooms, one on each floor, along with two living areas and a kitchen. There's a main door facing the road for privacy in the narrowest part of the house. The house has the original carriage doors on the first floor.
After entering from the front door, you'll be in a narrow entryway, once dubbed a 'mudroom', which leads to a kitchen that feels airy and bright, despite the small space. The kitchen opens up into a living room which leads you to the master bedroom on the ground floor.
"The only thing I would have done differently, personally, is not put a fridge in the middle but put the fridge over there so it wouldn't block the flow," Dirksen said in the YouTube video tour.
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