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.
Early examples, before Fowler:
Both houses are large brick buildings in the classical tradition. They may be seen as precursors, but are somewhat different from the Victorian octagon houses which are essentially domestic structures.
The leading proponent of octagonal houses was Orson Squire Fowler. Fowler was America's foremost lecturer and writer on phrenology, the pseudoscience of defining an individual's characteristics by the contours of the skull. In the middle of the 19th century, Fowler made his mark on American architecture when he touted the advantages of octagonal homes over rectangular and square structures in his widely publicized book, The Octagon House: A Home For All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building, printed in the year 1848.[2] As a result of this popular and influential publication, a few thousand octagonal houses were erected in the United States, mostly in the Midwest, the East Coast and in nearby parts of Canada.[3]
Fowler was not a professional architect.
According to Fowler, an octagon house was cheaper to build, allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer. These benefits all derive from the geometry of an octagon: the shape encloses space efficiently, minimizing external surface area and consequently heat loss and gain, building costs etc. A circle is the most efficient shape, but difficult to build and awkward to furnish, so an octagon is a sensible approximation. Victorian builders were used to building 135° corners, as in the typical bay window, and could easily adapt to an octagonal plan.
Fowler's The Octagon House is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a pattern book but the popularity of the book lies in the way Fowler suggested some general principles, and encouraged readers to invent the details for themselves. Only a few examples are offered, and apart from plans, the book has only two illustrations.
Fowler first shows some methods of subdividing an octagonal floor plan. Next is Howland's octagonal plan, a small house designed by 'Messrs. Morgan and Brothers, architects' which is similar to the Norrish House illustrated below. There follows A description of the author's own residence, now known as Fowler's Folly, at Fishkill, of which more below. Finally, A superior plan for a good sized house, which is a development of the Fishkill plans, apparently proposed by his engraver. The main feature of his plans is a desire to eliminate unnecessary circulation space, sometimes to the point that the main staircase is inconvenient, and the external veranda is the best way to get around the house.
Other design proposals include:
Built examples vary greatly in how much of this influence is apparent. Although built in brick, the Watertown house featured in this article is an almost perfect embodiment of many of Fowler's ideas.
Stacked board construction was recommended in the first edition of A Home for All[4] but the third edition of Fowler's book, printed in 1853, had a new subtitle: A Home For All, or The Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building, and was distinguished by Fowler's enthusiasm for concrete construction. At the time concrete construction was not widely used as Portland cement was only recently discovered by a Mr. Goodrich of Janesville, Wisconsin. Fowler knew gravel and lime were available in unlimited quantities in the prairies and saw the "gravel wall" as offering a new, cheap and durable way of building. His house at Fishkill was built using concrete. The walls were built up a few feet at a time, by pouring a mixture of gravel and lime into timber shuttering. As the concrete cured, the shuttering could be taken down and moved up to the next level.
Modern concrete is made using Portland cement, not lime, but the main difference is the universal use of steel reinforcing bars, which greatly increase the strength of the material, and make it possible to build concrete beams and floor slabs as well as walls. Fowler used large stones to reinforce corners, but he used no other reinforcement, and was therefore restricted to walls. The roof, floors and verandas are all of timber construction.
To quote Fowler "...those studies which have eventuated in this work were instituted primarily in order to erect this very house". Construction began in 1848, the same year his book was first published, and took five years to complete. The house was large, 42feet to each side of the octagon or 100feet across, and built on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River, where it could be seen for miles around. Fowler removed the top of the hill to create a level site and to provide material for his "gravel walls". This grand residence had four huge reception rooms which could be interconnected depending on the size of event, allegedly 60 rooms (counting small dressing rooms as well as proper rooms) and a glazed cupola rising to 70feet above ground. Fowler's favorite writing room was an internal room on the third floor, lit only from the cupola via a fanlight over the door. The house had no central staircase, so visitors entered one of the main rooms through a small lobby, while family and staff used the basement entrance. There are verandas all round the house at first-, second- and third-floor levels, linked by two outside stairs.
The financial panic of 1857 led Fowler to rent out the house, which subsequently went through a series of owners. Fowler's Folly fell into disrepair, and finally - condemned as a public hazard - it was dynamited in 1897 by Fred C. Haight, demolition engineer for the city of Fishkill.
Estimates vary but hundreds of these Victorian-era homes are still standing across the United States and Canada. One estimate puts the number at 2,077. Even in their heyday, octagon houses were never mainstream.
The largest remaining octagon homes in the United States are Longwood in Natchez, Mississippi and the Octagon House in Watertown, Wisconsin. Both homes are open to the public. In Eastern Washington state one still sits where it was moved to in 1993 to Bridgeport, near the Columbia River.
Fowler was influential, but not the only proponent of octagonal houses and other structures. There are also octagonal barns, schoolhouses, churches, and in Canada, octagonal "dead houses".
Within the central idea of the octagonal plan, these houses show a wide variety of both construction and outward form. They range from the modest two-storey Bevis-Tucker House, to the grandiose Armour-Stiner House[5] (both are illustrated below).
A full octagon house has eight equal sides, although slight variations in length are not unusual. In some cases the basic octagon is partially obscured by additions, either all round as at the Zelotes Holmes House, or by adding a functional wing out of sight at the rear. The House of the Seven Gables in Mayo, Florida has gables on seven sides while the eighth side is extended to the rear. The Richard Peacon House in Key West, Florida, appears to be a full octagon from the street but the rear portion is squared off.
Fowler advocated the use of "gravel wall" construction for the walls.[6] This was an experimental technique at the time, and although some were built that way, most octagon houses were built the same way as ordinary houses, of timber frame, brick or stone.
A moral community headed by Henry S. Clubb tried to establish Octagon City in 1856 in Kansas.It was intended to have an octagonal square with eight roads and octagonal farmhouses and barns.Most settlers had left after the winter.
The following are examples of the 'true' octagon houses and the range of design variations to be found.
See main article: Octagon House (Watertown, Wisconsin).
Although one of the largest, the Watertown house is midway between the grandest and most modest surviving examples. It is well documented,[7] has been carefully restored, and is open to the public as a museum.[8]
Construction was completed 1854. The house fell into disuse and was taken over by the newly founded Watertown Historical Society, and opened to the public in 1938. It is still owned by the Society.
The house was inspired by Fowler's book, and is a good example of his theories put into practice. Features which are directly linked to his ideas, apart from the octagonal plan, are the central spiral staircase, symmetrical arrangement of rooms with interconnecting doors, the verandas running all round the building, and the flat roof surmounted by a cupola. In accordance with Fowler's theories, the detailing is relatively plain for the period. Openings are simply framed by moldings. The covered verandas lack excess detail, having modest turned balustrade spindles and supporting posts. The decorative effect of the house comes from the basic design features: the octagonal shape and the external verandas.
There are four generously sized rooms on each floor, nearly 18 foot square, with connecting doors all round. The subsidiary rooms are less satisfactory, being triangular. The arrangement of rooms is rigidly the same on all floors because the partition walls are of 9inches brickwork, so they must stack one above the other. The central spiral stair is compact, but leaves one side of the house without direct access to the landings, so there are bedrooms only accessible through another bedroom - in the worst case, through two other bedrooms. The drawbacks of this arrangement are again a legacy of Fowler's influence, an unwillingness to sacrifice spaciousness in the rooms to sensible circulation arrangements. Fowler's own house had external staircases and the verandas were used for circulation and access to the rooms.
Below are drawings of the Watertown Octagon House dated March 28, 1935, prepared by the Historic American Buildings Survey. At that time the verandas were missing, removed when they became dangerously rotten. The survey drawings are a reconstruction of the house as it was originally built.