Skinny House

The Skinny House in the Rose Park neighborhood of Long Beach is a narrow, three-story house that has been cited by both the Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the nation’s skinniest house. There are a few houses, mainly on the East Coast, that might contest that status, but it certainly holds that title in California. It was built on a 10′ x 50′ lot that construction firm employee Newton Rummond acquired as payment for a $100 debt in 1931. Stories have it that he was bet he could not build a habitable house there. The house was designed by Rummond and built with the help of craftsmen who’d lost their jobs during the Depression. The 860-square-foot Tudor-style house has two bedrooms, one bath and a deck on the third floor. It is a City of Long Beach Historic Landmark.

Long Beach, Los Angeles County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt