Very narrow houses are perfectly livable, if well designed. There are about 25 across the street from me on 12′ lots, which means they are  a bit more than 11′  wide inside. I think CCOC has a bunch a few blocks over, off Rochester. Nonetheless, very thin houses make City regulators expand with worry.

A new group of thin houses is under construction at Gladstone and Cambridge. They replace the famous “yellow house” with its Charlie Brown zig-zag brown stripe.

I have been anxiously awaiting their construction because they are thin – on 12′ lots. But the end unit, along Gladstone, is even thinner, being a Flat Iron design. The framing is up, and the thinnest of thin houses looks like this:

Notice the extraordinary narrowness at the western end, by the red brick house. Other features worth noting are the huge amount of glazing on the second floor; and the big opening on the ground floor is a “drive through” porte cochère to the rear courtyard with garages for the other units.

When finished, it might look something like this:

The ground floor space is commercial/retail space, augmented by a finished basement floor with washroom, kitchen, and office space that has a window facing Cambridge. The basement space appears to extend right under the drive through:

The entrance to the residential unit on floors 2 and 3 is accessed from a front door beside the driveway and stairs up. Here is the 2nd level floor plan:

And the pièce de résistance, the top floor, which unfortunately for those who like to be seen whilst brushing their teeth, apparently has the street side window beside the sink removed if we go by the “as built” rather than the sketchup and plan:

All that glazing on both sides of the flat iron bathroom reminds me of the old song Silhouettes on the Shade.

The project is called Bella Towns, and hopefully will give a needed shot in the arm to a deteriorated few blocks of Gladstone. The nice residential houses in the area are under continual attack. Neighbours and the community association have to keep a close eye on automobile lots that seek to consume housing, the latest parking lot issue being church-sponsored. Whether a neighbourhood on the brink goes up or down very much depends on the character of the most recent changes/developments.

For every Bella Towns or Uno townhouse development, or Chi condo, there are forces seeking to gut the residential neighbourhood. Vigilance against the bad; encouragement for the good.

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yellow house pic and plans from their web site