This is a list of octagon houses. The style became popular in the United States and Canada following the publication of Orson Squire Fowler's 1848 book The Octagon House, A Home for All. In the United States, 68 surviving octagon houses are included on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The earliest and most notable octagon house in the Americas was Thomas Jefferson's 1806 Poplar Forest.
Orson Squire Fowler's 1848 book The Octagon House, A Home for All and his "monumental" four-story, 60-room house built during 1848–1853, Fowler's Folly in Fishkill, New York, provided inspiration for a nationwide fad.[1] Fifty-nine of the sixty-six pre-Civil War houses on the NRHP were built between 1849 and 1861. It is reported that the owner of the first-built of these, the Rich-Twinn Octagon House in western New York, was impressed by seeing an octagon house in the Hudson River Valley, presumably Fowler's home under construction.[2]
Canada
At least 20 historic octagon houses are known to exist in Canada, distributed across four eastern provinces.[lower-alpha 1] Extant octagon houses in Canada include the following:
Notable octagon houses in the U.S. include the following, more than 80 in number, in date built order. The octagonal outlines of these houses may be seen in Google maps and other satellite photo services, by zooming in from satellite view above, to their locations. Specifically, almost all of the following listed ones are mapped and may be observed via satellite view in the Google external link here (click on "Map of all coordinates" to the right).[lower-alpha 2]
Of these, six are further designated National Historic Landmarks of the United States: Armour-Stiner House in the Hudson River valley in New York, which is perhaps the only domed octagon house in the world; The Octagon House in Washington, D.C. (which is actually more of a hexagon), where President Madison lived after the White House was burnt by the British; Thomas Jefferson's retreat Poplar Forest; May's Folly in Georgia; Samuel Sloan-designed Longwood in Natchez, Mississippi, still unfinished after its construction was halted by the American Civil War; and Waverley, also in Mississippi.[6][7]
At least one of the houses has been claimed to have been used as "stations" sheltering escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad: the Octagon House in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin,[8][9] although that claim has been disputed.[10]
Octagon houses were particularly popular in New York State. There were 120 octagon houses in New York State,[1][12] of which 13 are listed on the National Register and listed below.
In 1958 Carl F. Schmidt published The Octagon Fad which attempted to inventory the Fowler-inspired homes, most of which were built prior to 1915 in North America. However, only a small fraction of the total are notable and extant.[13]
New Jersey is believed to have had 46 octagon houses and octagon school houses, with 15 houses and one schoolhouse surviving in 2016.[14]
Claimed to be haunted, has passageways claimed to be "secret", and claimed to have been used as a safe house on the Underground Railway (although Underground Railway claim has been especially strongly disputed).[10]NRHP
Believed to be the first concrete house erected in South Carolina; NRHP
Gutherie Octagon House
1850s
Westland
Wayne
MI
Now part of The Westland Historic Village Park, the central portion of the house was built in the 1850s. The two wings were added in the 1930s. The Gutherie family was, and still is, in the lumber industry, which explains the use of Chinese Hemlock on the inside of the house.
Built by brick mason Benjamin Franklin Gregg for Oliver and Mary DeMotte. Duplex with independent basement and main unit, 6 bedroom/4 bathroom underwent major remodel in 2019-20 after lengthy permitting process with the city of Boulder, preserving original stone foundation and footprint, exterior lines and features. Only octagon house in Boulder and one of six in the state of Colorado. House was named by the 1st group of CU Boulder students to live there after the remodel, due to unusual semi-circle door and windows and inordinate number of stairs with low headers leading to basement.[22]
↑ In Canada, the octagon house craze also engendered an octagonal deadhouse phenomenon. This included octagonal deadhouses, pre-burial edifices, built in the mid-to-late 19th century along Yonge Street in south-central Ontario, from just north of Toronto to Aurora. At least 3 octagon houses are classified as heritage sites, one in Richmond Hill and the other in King.
↑ The Google external link provides a U.S. map showing the locations of 85 of the houses listed below. Not included are any houses for which latitude and longitude coordinates are not available. Zooming in, and switching to "Satellite View", you may observe the octagonal outline of the houses, exactly at, or very near to the flagged locations. For a few sites, however, Google does not provide satellite view coverage in sufficient detail.
↑ That there are 84 NRHP octagon houses is documented by National Register reports identifying the below-listed properties as having "Octagon mode" architecture, or other indications of octagon house nature for these listed properties. Also, eight historic districts are noted to contain octagon houses as contributing properties, which may include others not listed here.
Related Research Articles
Octagon houses are eight-sided houses that were popular in the United States and Canada mostly in the 1850s. They are characterized by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan and often feature a flat roof and a veranda that circles the house. Their unusual shape and appearance, quite different from the ornate pitched-roof houses typical of the period, can generally be traced to the influence of amateur architect and lifestyle pundit Orson Squire Fowler. Although there are other octagonal houses worldwide, the term octagon house usually refers to octagonal houses built in North America during this period, and up to the early 1900s.
List of Registered Historic Places in Washtenaw County, Michigan. This National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted May 31, 2024.
The Octagon House is a historic house located at 276 Linden Street in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USA. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Along with the Wallace-Jagdfeld Octagon House, it is one of two Octagon Houses in Fond du Lac. The house was featured as the second-most haunted house in Wisconsin on the History Channel show "Hidden Passages".
The David Van Gelder Octagon House, also known as Springside is located at 21 Walnut Street in Catskill, New York. The brick house was built in 1860. It is architecturally significant as an example of an octagon house. The eight-sided plan was made popular in the mid-19th century by phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler. He called the floor plan "a superior plan". It includes four large square rooms and four small triangular rooms on each of the two floors. Two corners of each of the triangular rooms are small triangular closets. A central stair rises through the house to the cupola on the roof. A kitchen wing was added, likely in the mid-1870s.
The Richard Barker Octagon House is a historic octagon house located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Built sometime between 1855 and 1865, during a brief period in their popularity, it is one of two octagon houses in the city, and a relatively rare instance of one built using Orson Squire Fowler's recommended gravel wall technique. On March 5, 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Fowler's Folly, built during 1848–1853, was the octagonal home of Orson S. Fowler in Fishkill, New York. It was a "monumental" house for its time, with four stories and 60 rooms. The house was condemned as a public health hazard and dynamited in 1897.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Henrico County, Virginia.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Winchester, Virginia.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Prince William County, Virginia.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Audubon County, Iowa.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Summit County, Utah.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Scott County, Virginia.
This list includes properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Wake County, North Carolina. Click the "Map of all coordinates" link to the right to view an online map of all properties and districts with latitude and longitude coordinates in the table below.
This list includes properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Caswell County, North Carolina. Click the "Map of all coordinates" link to the right to view an online map of all properties and districts with latitude and longitude coordinates in the table below.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Williamson County, Tennessee.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Meeker County, Minnesota.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Monroe County, Illinois.
Slob Historic District, near Christiansted, Virgin Islands, is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The listing included nine contributing buildings, three contributing structures, and a contributing site on 9 acres (3.6 ha).
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