12 Quirky Houses Built Purely Out of Spite

We've heard of people buying airspace in order to not have their views obstructed, but what if someone purposely blocked the view from a window of your home? Enter the spite house. If you haven't heard of the phenomenon before, spite houses are homes or other structures built to annoy a neighbor or family member, block a view, or challenge a zoning law—an idea that is believed to have originated in the early 1700s.

This postcard from 1912 depicts the The Old Spite House, the home of the Graves brothers, two fisherman from Marblehead, Massachusetts, that supposedly lived in different sections of the home because they refused to sell the house to the other.

Legends claim that this Seattle spite house, built in 1925, was the result of a couple's divorce: the husband got the house, the wife got the front yard. What better way to spite an ex than with a miniature house as lawn decor?

As the story goes, there were two miners in Virginia City, Nevada who were sworn enemies. After one miner bought a plot of land and built a small white house with lots of windows so he could enjoy the sun and warm breezes, the other miner decided to exact his revenge by buying the property next door, and moving his already-built red cottage just inches from the other miner's home.

According to local legend, the story behind this incredibly narrow Boston home goes that two brothers inherited land from their deceased father in 1874. But while one brother was away serving in the military, the other brother decided to build a large home on the land, leaving only a tiny plot for his brother. So the solider decided to build this tiny home to block his brother's view and sunlight.

According to popular legend, after the city of Alameda, California claimed a part of Charles Froling's land in the early 20th century and built a road through it, Froling decided to build this 10-foot wide home out of spite—definitely a small home with a big statement.

Read more about the history of spite houses at BusinessInsider.com.

In 1806, when Thomas McCobb's stepbrother inherited his family homestead instead of Thomas himself, he built this adjacent Federal-style home that was larger and newer in order to overshadow the family's orginal home.

Read more about the McCobb Spite House at HuffingtonPost.com.

Built in 1830 by John Hollensbury, this spite house is only 325-square-feet and was built to keep horse-drawn wagons and noisy stragglers out of his alley.

See more photos of this Virginia spite house at NYTimes.com.

In the 19th century, Freeport, New York developer John Randall didn't think the town should be laid out on a grid. So he took matters into his own hands by swiftly erecting a Victorian home on a triangular plot of land. The result? The city had to divert the straight streets. The home still stands (and is occupied) today.

The story is that this 10-foot-wide spite house was built by Newton Rummonds after his neighbors told him that a dwelling couldn't be built on such a small plot of land. Newton proved them wrong.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Tyler-Spite House in Frederick, Maryland belonged to a prominent ophthalmologist named John Tyler who owned several pieces of land in the town. When the city wanted to extend a street in town through one of John's properties, he found a law that said if a building were placed in the way of a road, the road could not be built.

When Francis O'Reilly's neighbor refused to buy his investment piece of land, he built this 308-square-foot home in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1908. As of 2009, the house was still in use as an office for an interior decorating firm.

It's rumored that this spite structure in Rhode Island was built to block the sight of the local town.

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