Inside Look: The Narrowest House in Philly May Just Be This One in Manayunk

Someone managed to fit an 840-square-foot, two-bedroom house into a 9-foot by 162-foot lot. Buy it and you'll have a real conversation starter.

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When the listing agent for this house for sale brought it to my attention, the first thing I asked him for was the history of its lot. It would seem to me that there’s a story behind how this hillside block in Manayunk got subdivided so that one of the lots on it was a mere nine feet wide. (He couldn’t find one, sad to say, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Maybe an amateur historian reading this can fill both of us in.)

Luckily for whoever built this house on it somewhere around 1916, the lot is also 162 feet deep. It also slopes uphill from the street.

What all this means, then, is that if you buy this house for sale, you will own what is truly a one-of-a-kind house — quite likely the narrowest in the city — with a unique backyard to match.

This house has two bedrooms and two baths. In form, it’s a trinity that went to a taffy pull.

The first floor consists of the foyer. Upstairs you find the living/dining room and the kitchen. The next two floors each contain a bedroom, with the master on the top floor.

Thanks to its steeply sloped lot, the doors leading to the grotto-like, arbor-covered rear patio lie at the back of the third floor. Everything behind and up the hill from the patio is yours to shape as you wish.

The fourth-floor master bedroom has a balcony facing Silverwood Street.

The house is completely up to date, with new appliances, cabinets and quartz countertops in the kitchen, Mitsubishi split-unit air conditioners and attractive tile bathrooms, one of which has a marble tile shower.

Each of the rooms has plenty of space — it’s just long and narrow space. Should that produce the occasional feeling of claustrophobia in you, Main Street’s shops, bars and restaurants are a couple of blocks downhill. So are both Pretzel Park and Manayunk Regional Rail station.

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 2

BATHS: 2

SQUARE FEET: 840

SALE PRICE: $194,900

OTHER STUFF: The house is currently occupied by a tenant who rents it for $1,495 per month. The tenant will leave when the sale closes, but you might give some consideration to buying this house for rental income as well.

4435 Silverwood St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19127 [Ryan Garrity | Copper Hill Real Estate via Zillow]