English Basement - Wikipedia

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Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Apartment on the lowest floor of a building

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "English basement" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

An English basement is an apartment (flat in UK English) on the lowest floor of a building, generally a townhouse or brownstone, which is partially below and partially above ground level and which has its own entrance, separate from those of the rest of the building.[1]

Realty

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English basements are sometimes rented out separately from the main dwelling, either by a single landlord who owns both portions of the building or by a tenant of the building who is subletting. English basements are most common in larger, older cities like London, Edinburgh, New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C.[2]

Etymology

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The origin of the term "English basement" dates back to at least the mid-19th century. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1853: ("1853 N.Y. Daily Times 8 July 5/3 (advt.) House for sale...A new three-story English basement house").[citation needed] "English basement" is mostly an American phrase. Some people[who?] refer to it as the "garden level." Building codes in most cities[where?] use neither of the phrases, stating that any floor partly below grade-level is simply a "basement" and a floor more than 50% below grade-level is a "cellar." In some other cities, such as Chicago and San Francisco, this space is referred to as a "garden apartment" (not to be confused with other types of garden apartments). In Québec, in both English and French, this space is known as a "demi sous-sol," literally a "half-basement." In the United Kingdom, this style of apartment is usually known as a "garden flat," so long as it connects to a rear garden; the level of the property is referred to as "lower ground." [citation needed]

See also

[edit]

• Basement apartment

References

[edit]

1. ^ Holder, Sarah (2021-09-14). "How the English Basements of Washington, D.C., Came Into Their Own". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
2. ^ Nesbit, Josephine (June 6, 2022). "What Is an English Basement?". US News. Retrieved February 2, 2022.

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