Like the cantankerous widower in the Pixar movie Up, the most stubborn real estate owners of all time resisted every attempt by powerful developers to drive them out, steadfastly staying put while neighbouring properties were razed to the ground. Against all odds, their real estate holdouts remained and they defied the developers. Click or scroll on to see 12 notable examples from around the world.

In order to fulfil its ambition to become the largest department store on the planet, Macy's was forced to build around a five-storey structure on Manhattan's Herald Square. After discovering Macy's was buying up the entire block, rival retailer Siegal-Cooper acquired a plot on the corner of Broadway and 34th Street in 1900 and erected the five-floor building on the site in 1903 to thwart the plans.

Siegal-Cooper had constructed what was then the world's biggest department store on Sixth Avenue in 1896 and was prepared to play dirty to keep the coveted title. Siegal-Cooper was also trying to force Macy's to relinquish its Sixth Avenue and 14th Street Location in exchange for the building. Macy's ignored the ploy and the building was sold in 1911 for a record million dollars. The spot has since been dubbed the 'Million Dollar Corner'.

Macy's simply built around the structure and was finally declared the world's largest department store in 1925, outclassing its competitor. The building has since been redeveloped but Macy's has never managed to buy it. Since 1945 the retailer has leased advertising space on the corner structure, which today is partly covered by the famous Macy's shopping bag hoarding and houses a Sunglass Hut store.

Staying in the Big Apple, this handsome building that incorporated five elegant townhouses was built on the city's West End Avenue in 1893. Designed by esteemed architect Clarence Fagan True, the building resembled a single grand Gilded Age mansion. The house at number 249 was owned by the Cook family who moved in sometime during the late 1890s.

By 1915 only the matriarch of the family Mary Cook remained. Cook's husband had died tragically in 1913 and her children had flown the nest. A slew of developers descended on the area and persuaded Cook's neighbours to sell up, but the widow refused to budge. Eventually, the attractive original building was partly demolished to make way for two lofty apartment blocks.

Cook's house, however, was left untouched, squeezed snugly between the pair of condominium buildings. The strong-willed widow died in 1932. Her house, which has escaped the wrecking ball to this day, was sold and converted into an art gallery before being split into a number of apartments.

Nicknamed the 'Harrods of the East', the swish Wickhams Department Store on London's Mile End Road was actually modelled on Selfridges but unlike its rival in the West End, the retail space features a curious anomaly. As you can see from this photograph taken in the late 1950s, the building was bizarrely broken up by a small Victorian-era jewellery shop.

The Wickham family had a number of drapers shops on the block either side of a jeweller which was owned by the Spiegelhalter clan. Business was brisk in the Wickhams' shops, so during the early 20th century, the family drew up ambitious plans to build a fancy department store. There was just one catch. The Spiegelhalters wouldn't sell.

Though no doubt exasperated by the Spiegelhalters' stubbornness, the Wickhams completed their department store in 1927, constructing the building around the jewellery shop. The department store closed down in the 1960s, while the jewellery shop was shuttered for good in 1988. After falling into disrepair, the entire structure was restored recently for posterity.

Back in 2006 octogenarian Seattle resident, Edith Macefield garnered folk hero status when she turned down a million-dollar offer from developers for her dinky house in the now-hip Ballard neighbourhood, which was rapidly undergoing gentrification. 

Macefield's house was valued at just $6,000 (£4.7k), though the land was worth $101,000 (£78k), making her holdout all the more surprising. “I don't care about money,” she told The Seattle Times, “I'm 84. I'm perfectly happy here. And I don't want to move.” The powers that be ultimately gave up trying to persuade the elderly lady to sell and built the development around her modest home.

Macefield died in 2008. Interestingly, the property was bequeathed to Barry Martin, the new building's construction manager with whom she had struck up a friendship. Not long after her passing, Martin sold the house for $304,000 (£234k) and despite rumours that the property has been earmarked for demolition, it still stands, a testament to its late owner's resilience.

Funded by members of the local German Catholic community, the Gothic Revival Saint Joseph Church in San Antonio was completed in 1871. A soaring steeple was added in 1898 and exquisite stained-glass windows were installed in 1902 at great cost. By this time, the building had become a major landmark in the Texan city.

Despite its landmark status, the endangered church could very well have met the wrecking ball. In 1945 the Joske's of Texas department store approached the diocese and offered to purchase the building so it could knock it down and build a sprawling retail space in its place. Parishioners, who were horrified by the proposal, voted unanimously to reject the offer.

Joske's went ahead anyway and constructed the department store (which was converted some time ago into the Shops at Rivercenter mall) around the beloved place of worship. The church is now known as the 'Jewel in the Heart of San Antonio' in spite of the rather less than iconic shopping centre that envelopes it.

During the 2000s, real estate holdouts in China became a new phenomenon as shiny new developments sprang up around the country. The properties residents refused to part with were dubbed 'nail houses'. The home of Wu Ping (pictured) and her husband Yang Wu in Chongqing is one of the most famous.

In 2004 the Wus were approached by developers who wanted to raze the property to build a shopping mall. Unimpressed by the derisory compensation offer, the couple refused to move even after their neighbours had been bought out. Eventually, their home stood on a raised mound in the middle of a construction site and the developers shut off the power and water.

In March 2007 a court order was issued to remove the couple who courted the media and became a cause celebre. Yet the pair ignored it and stood their ground. Thanks to their stubbornness, the Wus bagged a new apartment of the same size and finally called it a day on their three-year fight the following month.

In 2005, lawyer Randal Acker purchased a charming Queen Anne house in downtown Portland for $380,000 (£295k) and christened the property the Figo House after his dog. The house served as the attorney's office. Yet a year after he bought it, Acker's property was facing the bulldozers.

Local transit authority TriMet was busily buying up surrounding properties to make way for student accommodation and asked Acker to sell up. He refused and the authority responded by threatening to place the house under eminent domain. Luckily, Acker's knowledge of the law came to the rescue and TriMet backed down in 2008.

The student residence halls project went ahead and was constructed around the historic house. Enjoying the last laugh, Acker celebrated his triumph in 2011 by buying 400 helium balloons, which were tied to the chimney of the house, a homage to the movie Up.

Farmer Yang Youde was feted as a hero in 2010 when he battled with developers in the Chinese city of Wuhan who wanted to acquire his 4.3 acres of land at a knockdown price. Yang was having none of it and turned to extreme measures to fight off the speculators.

The headstrong farmer, who was clearly prepared to go all out, constructed a makeshift watchtower and cobbled together an armoury of flame-throwing bamboo bazookas to repel the developers, earning him the moniker 'Rocket Man'.

Yang claimed to have used his homemade weapons on just one occasion to warn off the speculators. Amazingly, his violent methods worked on the developers but his brother was attacked and injured in the process. Later that year, the farmer won a generous compensation deal and agreed to hand over his land once and for all.

Scottish fisherman and quarry worker Michael Forbes drew the ire of Donald Trump in 2007 when he refused to sell his home to the real estate mogul, who had plans to build a luxury golf course next to the property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. Forbes was enticed with $578,000 (£450k) and a job on the golf course paying $64,000 (£50k) a year but declined the offer.

Infuriated by Forbes' refusal to move, Trump branded the Scotsman “a disgrace” and described his home as a slum. Trump Corporation staff even went as far as to remove a boat belonging to Forbes and fenced off parts of his land in 2010. These attempts at intimidation failed and Forbes stayed put. The saga was featured in a 2011 documentary entitled You've Been Trumped.

The Trump International Golf Links course opened in 2012. Ever defiant, Forbes hit the headlines again in 2016 when he raised the Mexican flag on his property “to show solidarity” with the Mexican people who Trump had “insulted” during his presidential campaign.

Back to China's famous nail houses. This apartment block and home in the city of Guangzhou make for an odd sight given they are encircled by an overpass. Before the highway's construction in 2008, the local authorities tried and failed to remove three families residing in the buildings.

The three families were far from impressed with the compensation offered and turned it down. Unable to move the residents, the authorities simply constructed the overpass around the buildings.

The local government reportedly promised the residents that it would build a sound barrier around their homes but the pledge doesn't appear to have been honoured. Whether the homeowners and their families can put up with the noise and pollution long-term remains to be seen but recent images show the properties are still standing.

Luo Baogen had scrimped and saved the equivalent of almost $77,000 (£60k) to build his home in Wenling, China, so when the local government approached him in 2008 to buy the property for $28,000 (£22k) in order to demolish it to construct a highway, the hard-working duck farmer was understandably up in arms.

Luo rejected the offer in no uncertain terms and the government built the highway around his home. In the meantime, the plucky poultry farmer and his wife fought the authorities for a decent payout, a battle that went on for four years.

Weary from his arduous fight, Luo finally accepted $42,000 (£32k) for the property, which though considerably less than what he spent to erect it, was a marked improvement on the initial offer of $28,000 (£22k). The house was finally demolished in 2012 and Luo's case, which had gone viral around the world, was closed.

For many homeowners, the prospect of single-handedly taking on the world's biggest developers would be a daunting one. But not so for Vera Coking, a retiree from New Jersey, whose home was threatened by none other than Donald Trump in the 1990s. But the business mogul had no idea who he was going up against...

Vera Coking and her husband Raymond bought their three-storey clapboard house in Atlantic City in 1961 for $20,000 (£15k). The property served as their family home, before becoming a boarding house for a time. Then the casino developers came knocking. Gambling was transforming the coastal city and Coking's house was situated in a prime location for development, just moments from the beach and the boardwalk.

In the early 1980s, Coking rejected a million-dollar offer from Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, who was embarking on a large commercial development in the city. Seemingly not taking no for an answer, the magazine boss commenced construction of the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino around her house, but building work halted when according to Philadelphia Magazine, Guccione couldn't obtain a gaming license and the project went bust.

A decade later Donald Trump stepped in and bought up the surrounding land for his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. He turned his attentions to sweetening up the stubborn homeowner, whose husband had since sadly passed away. Coking told the New York Daily Times: "Once, he gave me Neil Diamond tickets. I didn't even know who Neil Diamond was."

Coking stood her ground even when things turned nasty. Demolition crews allegedly damaged the property and set fire to its roof according to her attorneys, quoted in The Washington Post. Trump petitioned the City to use the power of 'eminent domain' to condemn the property. The widow was unwavering during the legal battle and in 1998, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled that Coking's house could not be taken away from her.

Coking stayed at her beloved clapboard house until 2010 when she moved to a retirement community in California near her family. The home was placed up for sale with the dizzying price tag of $5 million (£3.8m), but it was unable to find a buyer. It was eventually sold at auction in 2014 to investor Carl Icahn for $583,000 (£442k) and the home was promptly demolished.

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