A skinny house in Clerkenwell, known as the Wee House, has hit the market for £815,000. The property, listed by The Modern House, measures just eight feet (2.5 metres) at its widest point, tapering towards the rear.
Once a bookshop, the Wee House was commissioned by its current owner and designed by architect Joe Wright.
Situated on a narrow, triangular plot and sandwiched between two taller residential blocks, the building already had limited space. This, however, was compounded by an inefficient floorplan: the shop had been converted for residential use, with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom which covered the entire basement level.
The whole layout was reconfigured in a bid to “use every square centimetre of the plot”, according to the architect’s website. This included reinstating a larger kitchen on the ground floor, and turning the basement into a bedroom, given extra light with the addition of a low-level window beneath the kitchen worktop above.
Covering five floors, the property now spans 640 square feet, with one bedroom, a dining room, reception room, study — housed on a mezzanine floor at the top of the building — and plant-filled roof terrace.
In the kitchen, by the slim front door, there is a space for coats concealed by a curtain rail. A window faces out onto the street, while a small foldaway dining table has been integrated, in addition to the separate dining room upstairs.
An infill extension was added to the rear of the building, creating two wet rooms, a library space and a utility room. This, according to a post on Joe Wright Architects’ blog, was so awkward to access that builders had to abseil into the space in order to work on it.
“I didn’t want any trickery with tables coming out of walls, like maybe you’d have on a boat or caravan,” said the owner in the post. “I wanted it to feel like a normal-sized house.”
Outside, the property received a new “shop front” of pre-cast concrete, which proudly displays the house’s name.
The property was purchased for £345,000 by its current owner in 2006, according to the Land Registry, and has been used as a home and pied-à-terre.
In 2017, it was listed for rent for £3,033 per month, but this is the first chance to buy the property since its redesign.
The Wee House is not the only skinny home to have been listed in recent months. In January, a bright pink property known as the Bank Robber House was listed in Notting Hill for £1.25 million, whilst a Tardis-like house in Forest Hill hit the market for £850,000.
