The Loren Andrus Octagon House, also known as the Washington Octagon House, is a historic

octagon house Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round. Their unusual shape and app ...

located at 57500 Van Dyke Avenue just north of 26 Mile Road in

Washington Township, Macomb County, Michigan Washington Charter Township, located within Metro Detroit, is a charter township of Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 25,139 at the 2010 census. Washington Township is bordered by the village of Romeo as well as Ra ...

. On September 3, 1971, it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

Loren Andrus was born in 1816 in New York, and moved with his parents to Washington Township in 1828. In 1837, when he was 21, Loren Andrus was taken on as an assistant engineer for the survey of the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal. Andrus married Lucina Davis, and in 1849 the couple set up a farm on a large tract of land where this house now stands. In the late 1850s, the more prominent local residents spurred a small building boom, with each person striving to put up the most impressive residence. Andrus caught the bug, and in 1858 offered his brother-in-law, local architect and carpenter David Stewart, a steep sum to quickly design and build a distinctive house. Using

Orson Squire Fowler Orson Squire Fowler (October 11, 1809 – August 18, 1887) was an American phrenologist and lecturer. He also popularized the octagon house in the middle of the nineteenth century. Early life The son of Horace and Martha (Howe) Fowler, he w ...

's ''A Home For All'' as a guide, they began constructing this house, finishing in 1860. Andrus was quite active in local cultural organizations, and the house served as a social center for the community. It was also used as a "station" on the

Underground railway The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

. In 1890, Lucinda Davis Andrus died. Loren Andrus sold the house in 1894 and moved to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

. After Andrus's death, the house changed hands several times, and was even used as a restaurant in the late 1930s. In 1945, the

Detroit Board of Education Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) is a school district that covers all of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States and high school students in the insular city of Highland Park. The district, which replaced the original Detr ...

established Albert H. Schmidt Foundation Farm on the property to train high school and college students in agricultural techniques. The house served as a dormitory, and was operated by

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

as an extension of their agricultural college. The house was scheduled to be torn down until William and Phyllis Hamilton bought the house and restored it. They turned it into a living museum with three generations of the Hamilton family living and working there. The house was later sold back into private hands and converted back into a single family residence. It is now owned by the Friends of the Loren Andrus Octagon House, Inc., which bought it in 1987. In the 1990s and 2000s most of the land the Octagon house sat on was sold and converted into single-family residential homes.

Description

The Loren Andrus Octagon House is a two-story, eight-sided structure constructed of brick. The roof has extravagant

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

supporting brackets and an octagonal cupola with weatherboard sheathing on top. A large porch supported by Neo-Corinthian wood columns wraps around seven of the eight sides of the house. On the eighth side, a single-story brick kitchen wing with low gable roof extends to the rear. The house has two-sash double-hung windows with shaped wood lintels. On the interior, the octagon houses four rooms on each level. In the center of the house is a dramatic spiral staircase, which extends upward from the main floor all the way to the cupola. Triangular alcoves lead off the stair to each of the rooms. Ceilings throughout the house are twelve feet high.

References

External links

Loren Andrus Octagon House
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrus, Loren, House Octagon houses in Michigan Houses completed in 1860 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Museums in Macomb County, Michigan Historic house museums in Michigan Houses on the Underground Railroad Houses in Macomb County, Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Macomb County, Michigan