A diminutive three - account brick structure sits on 75 1/2 Bedford Street in New York City ’s Greenwich Village — andboasts the differentiation of being the metropolis ’s narrowest house . Its window dressing is less than 10 feet wide , and the inside rooms are less than 9 feet wide-eyed . Altogether , the entire building offer prospective resident just990 solid feetof blank space .
The home is tiny , but the construction ’s history is heroic . It has serve as the habitation of Pulitzer Prize - winning playwright - poet Edna St. Vincent Millay , as well as cartoonist William Steig , anthropologist Margaret Mead , and generator Ann McGovern , who wrote the funny striptease " Stone Soup " and a painting ledger breathe in by her base : Mr. Skinner ’s Skinny House , which tells the tarradiddle of a solitary man who ca n’t find a roomy that fit inside his narrow dwelling . John Barrymore and Cary Grant may also have lived in the building .
According toThe Villager , 75 1/2 Bedford Street was build over a former carriage entrance in 1873 . The house served a cobbler shop and a confect manufacturing plant before a group of bohemian artists and actors rented it in 1923 . Shortly after , St. Vincent Millay and her husband , a coffee importer named Eugene Jan Boissevain , became the house ’s newest residents . The two renovated the complex body part , converting the top floor into a studio for Millay and adding a Dutch step gable to the home ’s front .
A revolving door of famous tenant did n’t break off the minute home from almost being demolished in a redevelopment in the 1950s . Fortunately , it was saved by a attorney name Kenneth Carroad , who buy the narrow sign to preserve its bequest . Over the old age , it passed through several more owners , who revive the maturate home and added advance like unexampled floors , staircases , and carpeting . Today , itboaststhree bedrooms , two baths , four Mrs. Henry Wood - burn up fireplaces , and a backyard garden .
Despite its limited square footage , 75 1/2 Bedford Street commands a gamey cost tag . In 1982 , it was sell for $ 350,000 . And in 2013 , Curbedreports that it was purchasedfor a astounding $ 3.25 million . When it comes to veridical estate , sometimes it ’s a storied past — not size — that matters .
[ h / tThe Villager ]
