We’ve seen a lot of great tiny houses, and each one is fascinating in its own way. While some manage to include full size kitchens, others have really unique storage solutions. There are a lot of great space-saving techniques that we’d love to borrow from tiny houses.

Tiny homes can seem like they’re just the latest environmental trend, but truthfully, they’ve been around for far, far longer. Prime example? This 1920’s Seattle spite house! It might technically be a duplex with two bedrooms and two bathrooms (yes, a tiny duplex), but this crazy little home is only 16 feet wide at its largest point, and 4.5 feet wide at its narrowest.

Yes, there really is a duplex in Seattle that’s only about 840 square feet. While that sounds a lot bigger than a typical tiny house built today, keep in mind that this home includes two entirely separate units each with its own separate entrance. Of course, one family could choose to use both floors for their own living area, but they’d just have to be willing to walk outside and down the stairs to get to the lower level.

From the front, the house looks like a typical home. Actually, it looks really cute. However, when you see how narrow it is at the back door, it seems miraculous that an architect managed to fit everything one would need inside.

When you look inside, it gets even more impressive. The bedrooms are a normal size. The kitchen is light and bright. It even feels roomy considering how narrow the home is. For an older home, it looks well-maintained and nicely updated.

It’s impossible to look at this home without wondering why someone would build such a narrow house like this especially way before tiny houses were popular. There are actually two legends to explain why this house was built.

The first legend involves a husband and a wife. The story goes that after the couple got a divorce, the husband ended up getting the house and the wife only got a tiny piece of the property. To spite her ex-husband, she built this narrow house on her property. That’s why this house is nicknamed the “spite” house.

Take a peek inside this unique tiny house in the video below, and hear the other legend about why this unique house exists.

Why do you think someone would build this narrow house? Which legend do you think is true?