Title
Octagon Houses
Octagon houses have always intrigued me. Over the years I often drove past a brick octagon house in Townsend and another up the road in West Townsend with clapboard siding (more about these later) and another in Gardner. Here in Somerville we have a round house that’s a local favorite.
Orson S. Fowler and the Octagon House
Stoneham MA Octagon House on Pine St
While Orson Squire Fowler did not create the octagon house style he is most closely associated with it. Octagon houses were built before Fowler’s time – Thomas Jefferson’s summer home, Poplar Forest, was an octagon completed in 1819 for example.
But it was Fowler’s 1848 book, A Home For All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of Building in which he promoted the octagon as an economical and healthful house style, that set off the craze for octagon houses in the United States. Fowler pushed for the octagon style as a way to get more interior square footage with the same amount of exterior linear feet as a traditionally styled house.
Octagon house floor plans typically show a layout with four square rooms and four small triangular spaces on each floor.
It is estimated that as many as several thousand octagon houses were built in the United States, most from 1848 to 1860. Fowler was from New York and attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. Octagons were particularly popular in New York, Massachusetts, and in the Midwest in areas where Easterners settled – Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Octagon House in Stoneham on Spring Street
Another edition of Fowler’s book was published in 1854 and retitled A Home For All or The Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building. Fowler believed that the best way to build the octagon was with “gravel wall construction – i.e. poured concrete – but most were built with wood or brick siding.
Fowler also advised that a cupola should be built on an octagon house to provide light and ventilation and many octagon houses were in fact built with a cupola atop.
O.S. Fowler was a man of many interests – he was a publisher, writer, lecturer and reformer.
Even more than architecture, his passion was phrenology – the belief that the shape of a person’s head reveals one’s talents, personality and character. Fowler’s phrenological practice, with his brother as partner, attracted many well known patients including Clara Barton, Horace Greeley, President Garfield, Brigham Young, Walt Whitman, Richard Henry Dana and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Stoneham Octagon Houses
Want to see some octagon houses? The best place to get your fix near Cambridge is Stoneham, Mass which has three octagon houses, all privately owned.
Stoneham Octagon House on Summer Street
Stoneham’s eight-sided houses are pictured in the photographs here.
The red octagon house with cupola at 2 Spring Street was built for William and Lucinda Bryant in 1850 and is on the National Register.
The octagon house with the two-story enclosed porch at 77 Summer Street was built by Captain James Hill Gould between 1848 and 1850. It originally sat on 16 acres.
Enoch Fuller’s house at 72 Pine Street is beautifully sited atop a rise. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
Given Stoneham’s selection of octagon houses I guess the six-sided Dairy Dome on Main Street is just what you’d expect to find here. The distinctive building that houses the ice cream stand was once a Colonial Beacon gas station and is also on the National Register.
So come summer – make a day of it – go for a cone and a drive to see some very cool houses.
More Massachusetts Octagon Houses
The best source for info about octagon houses – and round houses and other many-sided houses – is Robert Kline and Ellen Puerzer’s Inventory of Octagon Houses.
Their site has pictures and details of these unusual houses – those that are still standing as well as those long gone.
Turns out there’s an octagon house on Route 16 in Newton that I’ve never noticed. And those “octagons” in Townsend and West Townsend? Lo and behold they’re both hexadecagon houses. I had to look that up - it’s a sixteen-sided house.
The inventory shows 82 houses in Massachusetts – though that number may include houses that are no longer with us. Either way there are a lot of amazing houses to go see.
Some people have lists of mountains to climb. Me? I’m going hunting for octagon houses.
Other Local Architectural Styles
Dutch Colonial House Style
Dutch Colonial Revival House in Arlington MA
When you skim through the American architectural guides looking for info on the Dutch Colonial style you’ll see pages about the houses built by Dutch settlers in the earliest years of our country. From 1625 to the 1830s Dutch immigrants built houses in the mid-Atlantic states with steeply pitched gambrel or gable roof lines.
In Massachusetts, what we think of as a Dutch Colonial is better described as Dutch Colonial Revival. These charming houses are common in the towns and cities around Cambridge and were built in the early decades of the 1900s. A Dutch Colonial in Arlington is pictured above.
The defining feature of the Dutch Colonial Revival is the gambrel roof with a continuous dormer. Federal or Georgian style entryways were common.
While the Dutch Colonial in the photograph is a center entrance, the side entrance became quite popular in the 1920s and ’30s. Typically you’ll find in the side entrance version that the living room runs across the front of the house to the side of the entry.
More Posts About Local Building Styles:
Concrete Buildings In Cambridge
And for even more click on the Architecture tag link below.
Concrete Buildings In Cambridge
William James Hall - Minoru Yamasaki
Robert Campbell, the Boston Globe’s architecture critic, had an excellent article in last Sunday’s paper about concrete buildings in Cambridge and Boston. Even if it’s not your favorite architectural style the article will give you a new appreciation for these 1950s – 1970s buildings.
Campbell writes:
“No other American city boasts as much noteworthy concrete architecture in as small an area as Boston and Cambridge”
At right is Harvard’s William James Hall, Minoru Yamasaki’s 1963 building which Robert Bell Rettig describes in Guide to Cambridge Architecture as “fourteen stories of pure white concrete”. Yamasaki also designed the 1962 Engineering Sciences Laboratory included in the slide show below.
Here’s a sampling of concrete buildings in Cambridge. I’ll try to add more the next time the sky is blue!
Click on the “Architecture” link below for more posts about Cambridge architecture.
The Tudor Architectural Style – Tudor Homes in Belmont and Nearby
Tudor Revival House in Belmont MA
Tudor Style Homes in Belmont and Nearby. Real estate buyers who move from other parts of the country may expect to see more Tudor style homes when they move to Cambridge.
The Tudor architectural style in America was popular in the early 1900s and was very popular in American suburbs in the 1920s and early 1930s after most of Cambridge and Somerville’s houses were built.
Characteristics of Tudor Revival Architecture
- Usually brick or stucco, less frequently stone or wood
- Many have decorative half-timbering
- Steeply pitched roof
- Massive chimneys, often with decorative chimney pots
- Tall, narrow multi-paned windows, often in groups of three
- Rounded arched doorways are common
- Patterned brickwork or stonework detail is common
Tudor Houses in Belmont and Nearby
Belmont has the largest concentration of Tudors in the area by far. There are some in Cambridge near Brattle Street or in the Divinity neighborhood. Tudors in Medford can be found in West Medford and the Lawrence Estates. In Arlington you’re most likely to see a Tudor Revival house in the Morningside neighborhood.
Here’s a slideshow of tudor style houses in Belmont Massachusetts.
SEARCH FOR TUDOR HOUSES FOR SALE
SEARCH FOR BELMONT HOMES FOR SALE
To see posts about other architectural styles in Cambridge and nearby towns click on the Architecture tag below.
Gothic Revival Houses In Cambridge, Somerville and Medford
Cambridge Gothic Revival
The Gothic Revival, was one of the early Victorian Romantic architectural styles.
Most Gothic Revival houses were built between 1840 and 1870.
The development of the jigsaw led to the popularity of elaborate gingerbread trim.
Somerville Gothic Revival House
The Gothic Revival style was particulary popular in the Northeast. There are a number of great examples in our area. Three of my local favorites are pictured here:
- The house in Cambridge is on Dana Street
- The brick Somerville Gothic Revival is on Morrison Ave. in Davis Square and was built for Nathaniel Morrison for whom the street was named
- The Angier House in Medford, built in 1842, is next to the library on High Street and is on the National Register of Historic Places
Gothic Revival Features
- Steeply pitched roof
- Typically has cross gables
- Gables often have decorative pendant trim
- Trefoil and quatrefoil ornamention is common
- Windows often have a Gothic-style pointed arch.
- If only one window has the Gothic arch it typically at the top of the most prominent gable – see the Somerville house
- Often has a one-story porch – either an entry porch or a larger porch that spans the width of the house
Medford Gothic Revival
Other Architectural Styles Around Cambridge:
Greek Revival Houses In and Near Cambridge
Shingle Style Houses in Cambridge
Cambridge Copycat Houses
22 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge is a copy of Elmwood
I know that there are “copycat houses” out there – replicas of well known houses – Mount Vernon has been recreated more than once and I’ve come across copies of Cambridge’s Longfellow House in magazines.
During a tour that was part of this summer’s Cambridge Discovery Days I learned that there’s a copy of a Cambridge house in Cambridge.
22 Fayerweather Street is a copy of Elmwood, once home to several historic figures including writer James Russell Lowell and now the Harvard President’s residence.
Elmwood in Cambridge
Elmwood was built in 1767.
22 Fayerweather was built in 1898 when the Colonial Revival architectural style was popular. The house was designed by Boston architect Herbert D. Hale. H.D. Hale was the grandson of Edward Everett Hale, the writer, reformer and Unitarian minister.
Have you come across any “copycat houses”?
The American House – Class at Brookline Adult Ed
That's me in front of my family's first house. Even then I was a house enthusiast.
I’ve always loved course catalogs and typically find all sorts of classes that sound appealing. Seldom though has a class seemed so much up my alley as The American House offered in the Winter term at Brookline Adult and Community Education.
The American House is a three session class taught in January by Stephen Jerome. Jerome is a specialist in historic preservation and design and a trustee of the Brookline Historical Society.
“In Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, author Gwendolyn Wright states: ‘From the first frame house in New England to the latest condominium in the Sunbelt, our houses have been filled with our images of ourselves, our myths, and often the images our neighbors, our government, or our employers have projected for us.’
In this course, we will unravel the myths and meanings of the American house, using the houses themselves as our text.
-
How has the builder-client relationship evolved over time?
- Who were the first American architects?
- What are the myths and realities of such legendary houses as The House of Seven Gables and Scarlet O’Hara’s Tara?
These questions will be explored in this overview of Classic, Romantic, high-style, and vernacular house forms that have shaped and continue to transform the architectural environment.
By the end of the course you will be familiar not only with the names of architects and styles of houses, but also with the issues of cultural continuity that have shaped the American house for over three centuries.”
As someone who’s been obsessed with houses since a very young age, I was quick to sign up for the class. Classes fill up quickly – you can sign up by phone at 617-730-2700 or on the web at www.brooklineadulted.org.
The American House will be offered by Brookline Adult Ed at the Brookline High School in January 2010. The class begins on January 14th, 7 – 9 pm and costs $85 for three sessions.
The Shingle Style – Architectural Styles in Cambridge
The Shingle Style, a quintessential American architectural style in the Victorian period, was popular from 1880 to 1920. Its roots were in the coastal resort towns of the Northeast where large Shingle Style cottages, designed by leading architects of the period, were built on the coast of Maine, Cape Cod and Long Island.
Shingle Style House on Avon Hill in Cambridge MA
Cambridge has a number of examples of the Shingle Style on Avon Hill and in the Brattle Street neighborhood. My favorite is the beautifully preserved, Hartwell and Richardson designed, Yerxa-Field house at 37 Lancaster Street on Avon Hill, pictured here. It has an extraordinary carriage house as well.
The emphasis in this style is the surface of the house – the shingles cover the house in a continuous wrap – almost a skin of sorts.
Other Features of the Shingle Style:
- Houses are typically rectangular in shape and asymmetrical in design
- Houses were large and rambling and rustic and informal in feel
- Roofs were gabled, hipped, or gambrel
- Shingles wrap around corners, there are no cornerboards
- Details were often Colonial Revival or Queen Anne in style
- Windows typically have multi-panes above a single pane sash
- Shingles curved into recessed windows
- Large, prominent chimneys
- Towers and projecting bays are common
Other House Styles Found Around Cambridge:
Copyright © 2008 - 2009 Centers And Squares Agent Login Design by Real Estate Tomato Powered by Tomato Real Estate Blogs
