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List of octagon houses

Octagon House in Watertown, Wisconsin, built 1853
David Van Gelder Octagon House in Catskill, New York, built 1860, photographed on January 13, 2008

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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bonafide was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Todd, Nancy. L. (December 1994). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination:Rich-Twinn Octagon House". Retrieved June 18, 2008. and Accompanying four photos, exterior and interior, from 1994