The Narrowest House in the World Opens

Last year, we told you about the narrowest house being built in Warsaw, Poland. Architect Jakub Szczesny wanted to convert a 3-foot-wide void between two buildings into an actual house. The idea seemed preposterous, but he persevered, found a buyer and actually got the house built!Behold, the Keret House, the narrowest house in the world:

Mr. Szczesny, 39, began to imagine an ideal resident for the home, and settled on Etgar Keret, an Israeli writer whose reputation for producing collections of very short stories, like his most recent “Suddenly, a Knock on the Door,” marked him as someone accustomed to working within tight parameters, and whose Jewish heritage and Polish roots offered a moving connection to Warsaw. (As a child during World War II, the author’s mother smuggled food past Nazi checkpoints just steps from where Mr. Szczesny hoped to build.)
When Mr. Keret, 45, received a call from the architect, he was initially puzzled. “This guy with a very heavy Polish accent said he wanted to make a house in proportion to my stories,” he said. “It sounded like a prank.” But Mr. Szczesny flew to Tel Aviv, where the author lives, and proved himself sincere. And Mr. Keret liked the idea that his family would reclaim a home of sorts in Warsaw.
Last week, after more than a year of bureaucratic tangles and engineering challenges, and with the crucial aid of a crane shipped in from Germany, Keret House opened its doors — or door. At just four feet across at its widest, and a mere 28 inches at its narrowest point, it may be the world’s thinnest home.

Steven Kurutz of The New York Times has the fantastic story: here.