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Jordan Pandy
- A 10-foot-wide house was built on a lot in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
- If the neighborhood had its way, there wouldn't be a house there at all.
- It's being listed for $619,000 and has interest from those who want a low-maintenance lifestyle.
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What was once an empty residual lot used as a garden by a neighbor is now the site of a 1,547-square-foot home in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, that's only 10 feet wide.
The two-story house sits on a 25-foot-wide lot (with a lot of depth) and even has space for a garage.
The listing agent, Ryan Wetherhold of Oceanside Real Estate, and the builder, John Atkins, regularly build on these leftover lots but anticipated having a little more space for a home.
"What you can do on these smaller lots is you can go in front of a board of adjustment, and they'll allow you to build more than the building code is allowed," Wetherhold told Business Insider.
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If the neighborhood had its way, there wouldn't be a house there at all. The neighborhood attended a public hearing to voice concerns — mainly from a next-door neighbor who used the untouched lot as a garden — and persuaded the board to disallow any adjustments.
"And to be honest, the builder almost built this out of spite just because of that fact. 'Oh, you don't think we can build, hold my beer,'" Wetherhold said.
They were stuck building a 10-foot-wide home instead of a 15-foot-wide home, but they still managed to attract buyers. Take a look inside.
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Wetherhold said this particular lot was probably plotted back in the mid-1900s.
"We don't create our own subdivisions and build — typically, we build on lots that exist," he said. "In this particular neighborhood, which is typical of beach areas or areas of high density, you'll get some areas of smaller lots."
In the 2000s, a developer built on nearly 90% of the lots in the community, but this was left out.
The lots were all 25 feet wide, Wetherhold said, but some owners eventually started to combine lots together, leaving some uneven spacing.
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Wetherhold and Atkins have built narrow homes on these leftover lots before and usually get some grace regarding building codes.
"They'll say, 'OK, you can build within the setbacks, you can build wider, you can build deeper, you can go up front,'" he said. "Typically, it's a fairly straightforward process."
But because of complaints from some of the neighbors, they had to build the house within the codes they were given.
"What we were left with was to build within the building code, a modern building code that's been revised that's pretty conservative at 35% law coverage and 7 ½-foot setbacks on each side," Wetherhold said. "So it made us build a 10-foot-wide house. We had no other choice."
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A next-door neighbor had used the plot as a garden and persuaded others to complain about the house being built.
"Had they understood the process better, they would've worked with us to help us build a wider home," Wetherhold said. "But their whole idea was once the pot got stirred, 'We can stop it from being built,' which is counterintuitive because obviously that was not the case.
Because of the building constraints, the home has some interesting features.
While it's only 25 feet wide, the lot is 140 feet deep — deeper than some typical lots in the neighborhood, Wetherhold said.
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Another cool feature of the home is the bump-outs — similar to what you would see in an RV.
"You're not supposed to put floor area in them, but you can put seating area — so you're not able to stand on it, but you can do build-in seating," Wetherhold said. "We built a ton of built-in seating because it's narrow anyway. To try to put a couch in a 10-foot-wide house isn't really practical."
The home doesn’t come fully furnished, but it does come with some pieces of furniture, such as the custom dining-room table.
"The builder's son did this really cool dining table that was made from boards from when our pier was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew," Wetherhold said, referring to the 2016 storm that destroyed a pier in Jacksonville Beach and caused damage throughout the Atlantic coast. "He kept all those boards and then made a dining room table front on it, which was a really cool thing."
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The house was finished this year and listed in March for $619,000.
Wetherhold said he had a deal lined up within the first week, but it fell through.
Wetherhold originally had a lower price in mind, but once the house started to come together, he thought he could aim higher.
"We thought originally we'd be maybe $450,000 to $500,000, and then as it evolved and we started to see it come to fruition and actually walk through it and finish it out, it really felt better than the way it looked on paper," he said. "Ten feet wide does not sound appealing at all, but once you're inside, the typical room is maybe 12 to 15 feet wide.
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Wetherhold said the activity on the house slowed down after the first deal fell through, but after being featured on 'Zillow Gone Wild,' more people became interested — even just to look at it.
"I had an open house the weekend after the 'Zillow Gone Wild,' and it was a three-hour open house, and I probably had 300 people to 400 people — which is just unheard of."
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The neighborhood is filled with high-six-figure and million-dollar homes, but Wetherhold said this home was for someone who wanted low house matinence.
Wetherhold said the house was perfect for "a person that wants to be in a neighborhood of million-dollar homes but doesn't want a maintenance factor of that and still wants to be in a nice area and pay about half the price."
"And come to find out, we weren't sure if that was a niche that was out there, but sure enough, it is," he added.
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