Exploring Vancouver 2, a guide to the city and its buildings, once quoted Ripley's Believe It Or Not as saying the narrowest building in the world - and therefore Canada - is located on Pender Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Looking at the building from the side, it is four-feet, 11 inches wide and is 96 feet long along the street. It was built out of spite by prominent businessman Sam Kee, says the book, written by Harold Kalman. It housed an insurance sales office.

The book says the city had expropriated most of Kee's property to widen Pender Street but refused to compensate him for a narrow, remaining strip of land. His neighbour, in turn expected to receive the strategic corner property very cheaply.

Kee responded by erecting the narrow, two-storey building in 1913, using bay windows to add extra space. Its basement, which once contained communal baths, extends well under the street.

The late Bill Birmingham, a Vancouver architect who was co-owner of the building from 1966 until the early 1980s, said the structure was odd enough to attract the attention of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not television show several years ago when his architectural firm occupied its second floor.

"It was a lot of fun. We couldn't have any fat employees, they couldn't get by one another," he quipped.