ALBANY, N.Y. – While most housing designs are based on rectangular shapes, some homes have an unusual eight-sided floor plan. These octagonal houses have been turning heads for more than 150 years.

In the mid-19th century, a quirky architectural fad swept the country: the octagonal house. Homes shaped like octagons were said to be healthier and more efficient than conventional houses — and some ...

Octagon-shaped houses are the legacy of one man — not an architect, but a guy who believed he could decode your personality by feeling the geography of your skull with his fingertips. The Victorian ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I think old houses, and the people who love them, are fascinating. Designers, architects, inventers and imaginative homeowners are ...

Motorists traveling on Green Street can’t help noticing an unusual-looking house, unlike anything else in the city. Many know it as “The Octagon House” because of its distinctive eight-sided design, ...

Octagonal houses, a minor vogue in the 1850s in the U.S., were considered by many to be the first pure American housing style. President Madison lived in one after the White House was burned by the ...

In 1848, phrenologist and lecturer Orson Squire Fowler authored the book “The Octagon House: A Home for All,” which shared his views about the benefits derived from residing in an eight-sided house ...