The incredible story of “Just Enough Room Island”, the house built on the smallest island in the world

The idea of ​​moving away from society to make a home office from a lonely destination gained momentum during the coronavirus pandemic. Few places are better for this than “Just enough room island” (Island with Enough Space), the house built on the smallest island in the world, in the United States.

The quirky house sits on the St. Lawrence River, which separates New York City from the province of Ontario, Canada. The land is located right on the border that separates the two countries, on the smaller of the islands that make up the Thousand Islands Archipelago (Thousand Islands).

// It’s the interior of America’s most expensive mansion – it has 21 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, and a 30-car garage.

The history of the place begins in the 1950s, when the Sizelands family bought an abandoned piece of land in front of Alexandria Bay with the idea of ​​building their summer residence there. The 310 square meters They seemed to have enough space to design a two story property and enjoy a miniature beach with no neighbors in sight.

As collected The nation, the place was then known under the name of Hub Island (“central island”), because of its privileged situation in the middle of the 1863 islands which surround it in the archipelago. The wealthy and low-key family – no details other than their last name and fortune are known – made their dream come true and in less than a year transformed this court the size of a tennis court into a charming home vacation.

Workers used every square inch of dry land, leaving sand to surround the property to form a beach. However, the tranquility did not last long: the place quickly began to attract the attention of curious tourists who sailed by boat in the vicinity.

It happens that in certain seasons of the year the sand disappears completely and the house seems to float on the water. At the moment, you can only see the classic terracotta-tiled facade and roof, as the family has never shown what it looks like inside. The only known detail about the style they chose are the two tin benches that stand out from the property’s back porch.

// They mounted an amazing operation to move an entire Victorian mansion

As reported The Washington Post, to enter the classification of the thousand islands, the land must remain on the water all year round and support at least one tree; otherwise, they are considered “mere patches of sand”. This is why the owners planted a tree at the entrance to their house. The property remains safe from flooding even when the tide is high.

Once they got to call it ‘island’ all eyes were on the quirky Sizelands family vacation home. Even the American newspaper went there in 2010 to write a column, and once she got to know the house, journalist Andrea Sachs summed up the experience in a comical sentence: “One misstep and you swim. “

The house also entered the Guinness Book of Records, albeit thanks to a random event: Bishop Rock, an isolated lighthouse off the English Isles of Scilly, was previously considered the “smallest inhabited island in the world”; but when its last keeper left in 1982, and the mechanism became automatic, it remained uninhabited and lost its title.

This is how “Just Enough Room Island” became the smallest inhabited island in the world: it is half the size of the old lighthouse. The place was gaining more and more fame and the “privacy” sought by the family who had purchased it was completely diluted.

No tourist can set foot on the property without permission, but many cruises in Alexandria Bay just to see it up closeand share their opinions on social media.

Behind the cozy island there is also a church, and in the vicinity they began to build other neighboring houses, but “The Island of Fair and Sufficient Space” it steals all the attention. When the tide is high, homeowners can cool off their feet in the waters of the St. Lawrence River just by going downhill.