Octagon house

For specific places named Octagon House, see Octagon House (disambiguation). For an extensive list of octagon houses, see List of octagon houses. For other octagon structures in the United States, see List of octagonal buildings and structures in the United States.
The McElroy Octagon House on Gough St. San Francisco, California; structural concrete construction (built 1861)

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.