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"Unique" is a word often used by builders to describe custom-home projects. But for sheer oddity, few can match a house under construction on the Northwest Side.

On a lot that's 730 feet long and just 30 feet wide builders Don Clause and Ron Calderon have managed to fit a house that's half the length of a football field and only a little wider than a semi-truck trailer.

The dimensions are about 150 feet by 10 feet, giving the two-bedroom house about 1,500 square feet of living space strung along a single corridor. Neighbors object to the house, saying it looks like a long, single-wide mobile home.

Despite a slow housing market, Clause and Calderon are building the house on spec and hoping to sell it based on its novelty.

"We're hoping that it's so unique somebody will have to have it," Clause said.

Said Calderon: "Everybody who sees it is just dying to see it finished."

Clause and Calderon didn't initially intend to build anything on the lot, which was purchased for tax reasons, Clause said. But about two years ago, they pitched the concept to architect Scott Starks, who said he thought the idea was "too intriguing to pass up."

The house can only be about 10 feet wide in order to comply with a county setback requirement of 10 feet on either side under the lot's zoning.

Plans for the structure refer to its as "the shotgun house," a term used to describe long, narrow houses in which a shot fired at one end would supposedly travel through every room before going out the other end, Starks said.

Such houses are sometimes seen in dense urban areas like New York, he said.

"You don't see a lot of them out here because in the desert there's all this space," Starks said.

Clause and Calderon's house includes kitchen, living room, office, dining room, two bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms and carport. Ceilings about 10 feet high and ample windows help make the space look wider, Starks said.

The house will probably be priced around $280,000 to $300,000 depending on any additional elements a buyer might want, Calderon said.

A few years ago, a long, skinny duplex, dubbed "The Slice," was built by Ibarra Rosano Design Architects in Barrio Blue Moon, getting some mixed reviews from neighbors. The two-story building was wider than the Northwest Side house at about 16 feet across, said architect Teresa Rosano.

Some neighbors living in homes surrounding Clause and Calderon's house are also less-than-pleased with the strange-looking structure.

"It's an aberration. It ruins the neighborhood," said Derol Briscoe, who owns a home on an adjoining lot. Briscoe said he didn't expect the sliver of land to be developed. He complained to the county about it, but without much success.

"People drive up to my house and laugh at it (the skinny house)," he said. "Everyone said it looks like a single-wide trailer."

Another neighbor, Sonja Moon, said she also despises the house.

"It's square. It's ugly. It goes on forever," she said. "It would be like living in a hallway."

Clause said he encountered some skepticism from Pima County Development Services about his plans, but the staff has "certainly been very professional and cooperative."

Starks said he is proud of his design work, although he expects the house will elicit extreme reactions.

"It will definitely find the right buyer who will fall in love with it," he said. But he added: "There are people who will hate it."

Lot dimensions: 730 feet by 30 feet

Required setback: 10 feet

Home dimensions: 10 feet by 150 feet

Likely price: About $290,000

Illustration by Chiara Bautista / arizona daily star