I recently got back from a trip to Europe to visit family and kept my eye out for tiny houses across the pond. What caught my attention in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark was a steel and copper bridge tender house. My husband and I actually peaked into the windows and contemplated if we could buy one of these things and spend our days watching the traffic and bicyclers speed past. These particular bridge tending homes are now being used as municipal offices, but I think most of these types of buildings would make great tiny houses along the lines of a lighthouse…utilitarian and beautiful.
In the past, bridge tenders were needed to run the electronics and machinery that raised and lowered bridges on major rivers, waterways and railroad bridges. The machinery was kept in a small house near or on the bridge and the bridge tender would spend most of their time in the house, or even lived there. Their jobs consisted of controlling and monitoring traffic around the bridges, keeping the bridge and the raising/lowering mechanism in good condition and running telegraph machines and other communications. Most bridge tender houses were usually built by government departments of transportation.
What’s appealing about these buildings is that they are located in cities, in the country, and according to the photo on the bottom, in the middle of nowhere. Bridge tender houses have mostly gone by the wayside in the U.S., but a few are still being used to monitor waterway and railroad traffic while some have been converted into private homes or museums. The few that have been made into private homes, I’m sure get their fair share of people trying to look into their windows.
Real Life Bridge tenders
State’s oldest swing drawbridge spans history
Former bridge tender kept watch over the original Cunningham bridge
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
Yeah, but not wheel chair accessible. Seriously, I love your blog. I live in a one-bedroom cabin in the desert but the rooms are fairly large.
So how much space does the interior staircase occupy? Living in a tower seems really cool if you’ve got enough space… did they post any approximate measurements?
The ones directly mounted on the bridges would vibrate and/or bounce every time a vehicle went by. Other than that, it might be fun for at least a while.
Great collection of bridge houses. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to spend my life living in a house on a bridge.
Beautiful collection and two of my near and dear are featured!
The second structure pictured above is the bridgetenders lookout at Blackwells Mills in Somerset, NJ. It was once the railroad ticket office at Voorhees Station, which was moved to this site and which replaced the original lookout (now a storage shed across the street). The only things that fit inside when the bridgetender worked there, were a pot bellied stove and a chair! Today, the picturesque structure is a potting shed and it graces the entrance to the Bridgetenders Garden, a place of peace and beauty with a great view of the Delaware & Raritan Canal.
The house where the bridgetender and his family actually lived, is across the street and is a modest but cozy, two-story structure. With a devoted group of volunteers and members, the Blackwells Mills Canal House Association maintains it as a museum and opens it to the public once a month for events.
Thank you for the great information Vivian! It sounds like a wonderful area — and a wonderful bridge.
I cannot agree more with you that it would be great to have one of those little houses… I especially like the one in Copenhagen.
Unfortunately, after Hurricane Irene, the two New Jersey properties shown above, did not fare well… Part and parcel of living near water…
http://www.flickr.com//photos/viviansville/sets/72157627546960518/show/
An updated link to the Hurricane Irene photos if anyone is interested. The original one posted no longer works.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436971@N06/sets/72157630005917757/show/
Forgot to add that after a lot of hard work and restoration following Hurricane Irene, all is well at both the Bridgetenders station and the Canal House!
They seem like such neat places to live. Perhaps there are other similar places? 🙂