This Park Slope Townhouse Is Only 12 Feet Wide

Photo by Alick Crossley

Somewhere on the outskirts of Park Slope there exists a townhouse that is only 12 1/2 feet wide. As someone who once occupied a bedroom that was a mere 6x10 feet, I feel a certain nostalgia for small spaces (the trick to making them work, always, is shelves). I had to know what these people did with their narrow townhouse. In the words of Elizabeth Miervaldis Lemon: "I wanted to go to there."

Not long ago The Insider, Brownstoner's weekly "in-depth look at what’s happening on Brooklyn’s interior design and renovation front," gave us a nice peek into the home.

Architect Tim Rasic purchased the digs in 2005 and transformed it both inside and out to a place he could call home with his wife and two future children. 

The building, he explains, was originally part of a pair, "built in the 1880s or '90s by a developer who wanted to maximize income on a 25-foot lot.” Rasic uses the now empty 12 1/2 foot lot beside him as both a parking spot and a space to entertain guests.

As The Insider reports, he did a lot of work on the place:

"It was a full-on interior and exterior renovation. “There had been only two owners before us, each of whom had the house for about fifty years,” Rasic says. “And they hadn’t done any work in the last fifty.” The big job included a new brownstone façade, all-new electric (the existing wiring was the very old braided type), removal of an outside toilet in a lean-to off the back wall, and chipping away concrete in the backyard to reveal old bluestone."

Want to see what the inside looks like? I thought so.

Head on over to Brownstoner for more.