Casa du Currivu, aka ‘House of Spite’, is a bizarre-looking house in the Sicilian village of Petralia Sottana that holds the unofficial title of ‘world’s narrowest house’.

Petralia Sottana, a small village of about 2,000 people in the heart of the Madonie mountains in the province of Palermo, is home to one of Italy’s most unusual tourist attractions – a two-storey house with a normal ground floor and an upper level that is only around 3-feet, or one meter thick. It is known as Casa du Currivu, or the House of Spite, mainly due to the local legend surrounding its purpose. Seeing as it isn’t wide enough for two people to pass by each other, let alone live inside it full time, the thin edifice was allegedly only designed to block a neighbor’s window view following an argument.

Although the exact story of Casa du Currivu has been forgotten, it is believed that the strange house was built sometime during the 1950s, following a dispute between two neighbors. Back in those days, it wasn’t unusual for people to expand their residence vertically, by adding another floor, only in order to do that, one had to get the consent of their next-door neighbors. In this particular case, the owner of Casa du Currivu failed to get the approval of one of his neighbors and decided to get his revenge.

While building a second floor next to the adjacent building required neighbors’ consent, doing so at a certain distance from the adjacent edifice didn’t require any permission, so the scorned owner of Casa du Currivu built the thinnest house possible just so he could obstruct his neighbor’s view, knowing full well that he could never actually use the floor as a living space.

The House of Spite is virtually empty inside. It just features some windows and a staircase, but there is nothing inside. It was built out of spite, just to inconvenience a neighbor.

Today, Casa du Currivu is one of the most famous buildings in Sicily and one of the main attractions of Petralia Sottana.

 

Interestingly, Warsaw’s Keret House is also claiming the title of ‘world’s narrowest house’. It is only 36 inches wide at its narrowest point and 4 inches at its widest.