Alameda Spite House likely built in ill will but ‘a little jewel box’ today

Search online for “things to do in Alameda,” and invariably the island city’s “Spite House” comes up high on several lists. Homes built literally out of spite, such residences often block neighbors’ views (thecraftsmanblog.com/the-6-best-spite-houses-ever).

As the story usually goes, one Charles Froling was upset back in 1908 that the city of Alameda had annexed most of his recently inherited property to build Crist Street at the corner of what is now Broadway and Crist.

This would put the kibosh on his plans for a “dream home” on the land. Supposedly, Froling went to his neighbor to get her cooperation to help thwart the plan but was rebuffed. So with the tiny piece of land he had left that was just 10 feet wide and 54 feet long, Froling built a residence 20 feet high that completely blocks his uncooperative neighbor’s place to this day. It simply doesn’t get any more spiteful than that.

Hold the phone, though. Jennifer Jacobson, who owns the Alameda Spite House today, said that’s not the real story. She said what really happened was that the city had no plan to annex the property for a street and that Froling, a railroad carpenter who had plenty of experience constructing odd-shaped buildings, had an agreement with his next-door neighbor to buy her backyard land so he could build his dream house.

Jacobson said the neighbor, whose husband’s family owned a furniture store on nearby Park Street, had turned the 1880s Victorian property into a boarding house after she and her husband divorced and the husband left her with the kids to run off with another woman.

Froling’s neighbor reneged on the promise to sell her backyard property for reasons unknown, Jacobson said, so out of spite he built the house next-door to her that still stands to this day. Jacobson claims hers is one of just seven spite houses in the country.

Adding to the intrigue and drama, Froling’s neighbor is said to have killed herself in despondency over her property’s obstruction after the Alameda Spite House was built. Even Jacobson is not entirely sure of this heart-wrenching claim’s veracity, though. Further muddying the waters is a 1957 Oakland Tribune report on the house with a quote from Froling’s son implying that spite had nothing to do with it.

“Father was a big, easygoing Swede,” the son was quoted as saying in the report. “That (the house) was what we could afford to build. We were a poor family.”

Whatever the case, Jacobson is quick to assert that any purported online pictures of the home’s interior are bogus and that no one’s been allowed into the house to take such photos since she and her husband have owned it. She said that despite her efforts to maintain privacy, lookie-loos — at least a five a day — still try to barge in for a firsthand look. Even little kids, especially in search of Halloween candy, have tried to get in, she said.

“Halloween in Alameda is insane,” Jacobson said. “The first year we were there, we had between five (5,000) and 6,000 children, and I gave out one piece of candy each. I had one little girl come in the house — she walked right by me — and she goes, ‘I feel it.’ And I’m like, ‘Get out.’ ”

A fair question in this overheated Bay Area real estate market is what a typical spite house in Alameda goes for on the open market these days. John Michael Kyono, a real estate agent who is an expert on Alameda’s Victorian homes — and the Island has more restored examples of the late-1800s vintage houses than San Francisco — estimates that today the spite house is worth $950,000 to $1.1 million.

Longtime Alameda author Jack Mingo, a keen observer of Island life, says what the spite house says about Alameda is that the city, despite the architecture, is pretty modern. When people see all the Victorians in Alameda, they expect that life on the Island is like what it was in the 1890s, Mingo said.

“The houses imply that people are going to be genteel and wearing white dresses in the summer and that sort of thing, and it doesn’t really happen. People turn out to be just as weird and awful as people of this century.”

That spite houses are now illegal should be noted. As to why exactly, the Alameda planning department was mum. Jacobson and her husband bought the Alameda Spite House, complete with “Spite House” written in stained glass on the front door, 26 years ago. In spite of its odd size, one thing she attests to is how nice it is.

“There are people out there laughing, saying, ‘How can someone live in there? How do you get a bed in there? It must be like living in a car,’ ” says Jacobson. “It’s not. We have a queen-size bed. The ceilings are extremely tall. The middle of the house is open to the roof. It’s a little jewel box.”

Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.