They say a man’s home is his castle, but sometimes you have to give up on the dream. The other day I found this thread on Nail Houses on Quora. Nail Houses are houses or buildings in the middle of new development. The owners of the Nail Houses are determined to stay in their home to the bitter end. While the developers would like to buy their property so they can build something new. Here are a few examples of Nail Houses from that Quora thread and some more information.
A nail house is a Chinese neologism for homes belonging to people (sometimes called “stubborn nails”) who refuse to make room for development. The term, a pun coined by developers, refers to nails that are stuck in wood, and cannot be pounded down with a hammer. (Wikipedia)
Snack Street Nail House, China
This awesome photo is of a building whose recalcitrant owners took 3 years and over $400,000 to be convinced to move.
In one famous case, one family among 280 others at the location of a six-story shopping mall under construction at the location of a former “snack street” in Chongqing refused for two years to vacate a home their family had inhabited for three generations.[6] Developers cut their power and water, and excavated a 10-meter deep pit around their home.[1][8] The owners broke into the construction site, reoccupied it, and flew a Chinese flag on top. Yang Wu, a local martial arts champion, used nunchakus to make a staircase to their house, and threatened to beat any authorities who attempted to evict him.[1] His wife, a restaurateur named Wu Ping who had planned to open a restaurant in the home’s ground floor, granted interviews and frequent press releases to generate publicity.[2] The owners turned down an offer of 3.5 million yuan (US$453,000), but eventually settled with the developers in 2007.[6] (Wikipedia)
The Nail House from Up
The Disney/Pixar Movie Up was about how this Nail House was finally removed from it’s resting place. Below is an amazingly similar real world analog.
Nail House Pizza
This forthcoming pizza joint was in Washington D.C. Not sure if it’s still there. But it makes you realize how much space is wasted above the top floor of a small building.
Here’s what it looked like during construction of the new building behind it.
And finally, it ended up like this.
in 2006, austin spriggs was happily living in a house that would soon become a thorn in the side of local developers. such a thorn in fact that mr spriggs was offered more than $3m for the property in 2008 even though the property was previously only worth an estimated $200k. needless to say, he turned the offer down and then proceeded to take out a loan to convert the building into a pizza joint. as you can see, the building is absolutely dwarfed by the surrounding developments. (Pivan Mickey)
Are there any Nail Houses in your town?
-Mike
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