The skinniest house in New York City is on the market for a fat price.

The 9-1/2-feet-wide townhouse at 75-1/2 Bedford St. in the West Village was put up for sale this week for an asking price of $2.75 million, or $2,777 a square foot.

"It's a legendary house because it's the narrowest house in New York and it's got a lot of lore," said Alex Nicholas, the Corcoran real estate broker who is handling the listing.

Nicholas said he'll begin showing the three-story, 990-square-foot house next week.

He is confident he'll get the big-bucks asking price even in the soft real estate market.

"It's a unique space - one of a kind," Nicholas said.

Built in 1873, the diminutive house is squeezed between 75 and 77 Bedford St. and has been home to a who's-who list of luminaries, including anthropologist Margaret Mead and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Author Ann McGovern lived there briefly and the red-brick house inspired her to co-write the novel "Mr. Skinner's Skinny House."

Corcoran's Web site claims that actors Cary Grant and John Barrymore also once called the thin house home.

The interior of the house is only 8-1/2-feet wide and 42-feet long and has a trapdoor in the kitchen floor that leads to a finished basement.

At the rear of the house are floor-to-ceiling French doors on the first and second floor that open onto a tree-shaded back yard that is shared with neighbors.

With a garret skylight on the third floor and oversized windows the house boasts an abundance of natural light.

"It has a great sense of air," said Nicholas. "It doesn't feel like you're in the city."

Real estate records show the current owner, Steven Balsamo, purchased the house in 2000 for $1.6 million from Christopher Dubs, an architecture preservationist.

Dubs bought the house in 1994 for $270,000 and spent about $200,000 fixing it.