Reminds me of the Edith Macefield house, in Ballard (Seattle, WA).
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If you're ever in Ballard, I highly recommend the excellent cocktail bar Hazelwood, which pays tribute to her with a namesake cocktail (the Edith Macefield).
I think if the house was first then that’d be sad, yes. But if someone bought the lot and managed to get a house in there legally (or just got away with it) then that’s pretty rad. Like a brilliantly yellow dandelion forcing itself through a crack in an otherwise seamless, lifeless and bland sidewalk.
I don't know if that is the most likely scenario, I think those building on ether side would have side windows if that was the case. I think you only build walls like this if you are right up to the next building.
This is what we call a shoebox house in Montreal. There are quite a few in my neighbourhood. See more in this article. Mind you, these are pictures of the pretty ones, they are not all as cute, but not many are as far recessed from the street either.
The earliest source I can find is a Tumblr post from Dec 2015, but I could not locate the address. You may be able to get in touch with that account, though it's a long shot given the age of the post.
You could try reverse image search but I don’t suspect you won’t find much more info.
No joy but I did find this remarkably similarly sited building. Itmaybequitecommon. Apparently part of a class of buildings the Chinese call nail houses.
Ah too bad. I kinda want to find more like it. You could put up a facade on the street and have like a secret home. Might be a good option in some decaying citys.
ngl i would love living there, both as a child and adult. there's still plenty of space, and the walls could facilitate a lot of new games. also, as someone else said, if you could paint them it would be even better
It’s not the house itself that makes me sad - it’s kinda cute and I dream of a private garden. But I suspect this house was here before the (presumably) commercial buildings either side and that makes me sad. Like Chinese nail houses.