In 1848, Orson Squire Fowler, published A Home for All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building in which he announced that the octagon house with its eight sides enclosed more space than a square one with equal wall space. The octagonal form had been used in public buildings in the past, but now as a concept for domestic architecture it had a dedicated and convincing champion. Fowler's books, stressing the functional and stylistic advantages of the octagon house, found many readers and several hundred followers who sprinkled the landscape from New England to Wisconsin with...