The curiosity on Carlisle Street
Octagon-shaped houses started as an American fad
Our subject today is a uniquely designed private home that could once be found in downtown St. Catharines — the “octagon house” that used to stand about mid-block on the east side of Chestnut Street (now Carlisle Street) between St. Paul and King streets.
There had been octagonal houses built in North America dating back to the late 18th century, but they were generally quite large and lavish, the properties of the upper classes.
But in 1848 New York resident Orson Fowler published a book titled “The Octagon House, a Home for All.”
In that book he claimed that houses with octagonal, eightsided floor plans were cheaper to build, allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, were easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer.
In addition to writing that book, Fowler was also a popular lecturer and likely talked up the octagon house concept as he travelled across North America. He was best known for being a proponent of phrenology, the pseudo-science which claimed that people’s talents and character traits can be predicted from the shapes of their skulls.
It seems that it didn’t take long for word about this new building style to reach St. Catharines, because a map issued in 1852 shows that by then local resident John Chapin had already built such a house for himself on Chestnut/Carlisle.
Unfortunately, surprisingly, we know of only two depictions of this unusual, noteworthy structure — a minuscule drawing of it that was a tiny detail in a bird’s eye view of the city published in 1875; and a rather blurry, distant view of it from a photo of St. Catharines’ downtown, published in 1904.
Those images, along with the outlines of the building shown on the above-mentioned 1852 map and a 1913 fire insurance plan, show that it was one storey tall, made of stone or concrete, had a verandah facing the street, and was topped by a wood frame cupola.
The house stood until March 1913. By then it was the property of businessman Harry Cavers who had it demolished with the intention (according to a Standard report at the time) of replacing it with modern houses.
But that never happened.
The place where the house had stood on Carlisle Street in fact remained empty until the early 1990s, when the lot was included in the large group of properties assembled to became the site of today’s Ministry of Transportation/bus terminal complex.
The house stood about where today the city buses emerge onto Carlisle to begin their runs across the city.
About octagon houses — this American fad produced examples in almost every province in this country, and especially in Ontario.
There are still two examples of the style not far from here, one on Summer Street in Niagara Falls, the other on Baker Road in the former Willoughby Township, between Chippawa and Fort Erie. For further information on this unusual architectural form, visit this web site: www.octagon.bobanna.com.
Dennis Gannon is a member of the Historical Society of St. Catharines. He can be reached at gannond2002@yahoo.com.