At 39 rue du Château d’Eau is the smallest house in Paris. Wedged between two 5-story buildings. This dollhouse … was built due to an inheritance issue.

A dollhouse

It’s so tiny that it’s easy to walk past it without noticing it : 1.40 m wide, barely 3 m deep, a ground floor overlooked by a quirky floor. A few steps from the town hall of the 10th arrondissement, 39 rue du Château-d’Eau is home to the smallest house in Paris, wedged between a building and a decoration shop. Upstairs was originally a bedroom, which communicated with the apartments .

A dispute over the inheritance rights

With a depth, like the shop on the ground floor, of 3 meters, the story goes that it was for a long time inhabited by a baby whose cradle took up all the space. Why such a small house? Before its construction, there was a passase that led to rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin. Following a dispute over the inheritance rights of this passage, it was decided to condemn it. A simple little house was then erected, small enough to block the passage, but not too large to avoid excessive costs.