Why This Raleigh House Has No Driveway, No Walkway, And No Lights On

In Raleigh, North Carolina, the house on Wade Avenue has no driveway, walkway or lights. If you were to try to get through the front door, you would hit a brick wall. If it's not a house, then what is it exactly? Some Redditors from North Carolina figured out the answer: It's actaully a water booster pumping station.

Water booster pump stations are essentially "superchargers" for the city's municipal water supply, according to WUNC. Placed in strategic locations, they push water uphill or forward to ensure a consistent and reliable water supply. Without the stations, the city's water would run backwards.

All in all, there are about 20 different stations in Raleigh, but the Wade Avenue station is the only one that looks like a house. Its strange form comes out of a compromise with the church next door, which did not want to be adjacent to an industrial plant (and the city needed to have a plant in that location).

Here's what the house looks like on the inside:

Water booster pump station, disguised as houses aren't unusual in the United States. The oldest one is in Lousiville, Kentucky (and disguised in Greek architecture):

There's this one in Manistique, Missouri:

And this one disguised as a lake house on Lake Gaston, in Virginia Beach, VA.