Mama said knock you(r lovely ocean view) out

June 21, 2018 3:02 PM

Spite buildings: when human grudges get architectural (SLGuardian) "Feuding brothers, thwarted lovers, and a lot of spoiled views: ‘spite buildings’ are our smallest human pettiness made manifest in bricks and mortar."
posted by chimpsonfilm (15 comments total)

Not exactly a spite house, but down the road from my brother's house is an exact duplicate of his house. Or an exact duplicate of the house at the time the couple who used to own my brother's house divorced and the husband moved down the road and built another house just like the one his wife kept.
posted by lagomorphius at 3:09 PM on June 21, 2018 [12 favorites]

It's a spite home.
posted by thelonius at 3:22 PM on June 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

More spite houses previously.
posted by Melismata at 3:27 PM on June 21, 2018

That red and white one just hurts the eyes. And it seems to have worked, because they got permission to tear it down.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 3:39 PM on June 21, 2018

lagomorphius -- it's not a Sears Catalog House, is it?
posted by nathan_teske at 3:53 PM on June 21, 2018

lagomorphius -- it's not a Sears Catalog House, is it?

It's a ranch house that was built after the couple divorced. Everybody in the immediate area knows about it.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:04 PM on June 21, 2018

down the road from my brother's house is an exact duplicate of his house

If they built the original house, then the value of not just the plans, and the materials receipts, but all of the Permit filings, the mortgage assessment, so many other procedural records, could be a very significant savings for a rubber-stamp within the same municipality. Maybe spite is just the gravy.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:14 PM on June 21, 2018

an exact duplicate of the house at the time the couple who used to own my brother's house divorced and the husband moved down the road and built another house just like the one his wife kept.

The house I grew up in in SoCal was three doors down from another house with a completely different paint job and landscaping that we realized, a few years after we moved in, had the exact same floorplan, flipped. We didn't have any reason to think spite was involved, though—probably just a thrifty builder.
posted by The Tensor at 4:22 PM on June 21, 2018

I love the idea of spite houses. The best one is at the end of the linked article.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:05 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I grew up very close to Wainhouse Tower, apparently built mostly with an eye to defeating a rich landowner's claim that he had "the most private estate, into which no-one could see".
posted by Jon Mitchell at 5:15 PM on June 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

The house (1924) next door to ours was built exactly mirror (structurally) to ours, but with slightly different furnishings. No reason to assume spite, just...handy.
posted by notsnot at 5:49 PM on June 21, 2018

While not technically a spite development, a Chicago River tour boat guide said that Mies van der Rohe was quite pleased to be blocking the views of his anthesis of architectural style, Marina City, with his IBM Building.
posted by Buy Sockpuppet Bonds! at 5:56 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Nevermind this spite-shite, the word "antifolly" is right there waiting to be coined, ha! Proper interesting post!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:30 PM on June 21, 2018

Interesting. I found The Grudge especially intriguing, how could you possibly live in it?
This is what it is like inside - Inhabiting A Grudge:

I discovered that each floor is divided into two apartments. The first begins with a kitchen, followed by a series of rooms that sequentially diminish in size as they become more private. As you continue into the apartment, the space gets narrower with each room, until you reach a very tight area. The apartment ends at a bedroom, followed by a long fifty-centimeter walk-in closet.

The second apartment on the wider side of the site is also connected by a corridor that cuts through each room. The quality of light in the space and the sea view from the rooms make it seem large enough for a resident to forget that he or she lives in what is essentially a wall. The high ceilings and windows allow ample light to flow in, which helps to create a sense of spaciousness.

Each room inside The Grudge has two sources of light; one towards the brother’s plot—today, the German school, with The Grudge blocking its view—and the other from the front, towards the Mediterranean with its beautiful, uninterrupted view of the sea.

posted by unliteral at 8:24 PM on June 21, 2018 [8 favorites]

Plum island beach house wins for creativity.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:56 AM on June 22, 2018