Octagon 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.
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.
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.
Victorian builders were used to building 135° corners, as in the typical bay window, and could easily adapt to an octagonal plan.
[citation needed] To quote Fowler "...those studies which have eventuated in this work were instituted primarily in order to erect this very house".
Fowler removed the top of the hill to create a level site and to provide material for his "gravel walls".
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.
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.
[citation needed] Within the central idea of the octagonal plan, these houses show a wide variety of both construction and outward form.
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 Richard Peacon House in Key West, Florida, appears to be a full octagon from the street but the rear portion is squared off.
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.
The covered verandas lack excess detail, having modest turned balustrade spindles and supporting posts.
[citation needed] Below are drawings of the Watertown Octagon House dated March 28, 1935, prepared by the Historic American Buildings Survey.
