FLORIDA

Citrus County.

• Inverness. Partial octagon house. Built in 1900, by Robert O. Hicks. Located at 401 Tomkins Street. Oldest house in town. Irregular shape intended to help withstand hurricanes. The front porch has been replaced, and two bathrooms added, but the house is otherwise in original condition.
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  Source: Ellen Puerzer.
  Entered: June, 2011.

Columbia County.

• Lake City. Octagon house. Built in or before 1885. Two story. Bounded by Calhoun, Franklin, Hernando, and Jefferson Street. Shown in a segment of an 1885 map of Cairo, at the center of the image.
  Source: R. Kline.
  Entered: August, 2002.
• Lake City. Octagon house. Construction date unknown. Appeared in a local calendar in 1903. Moved several times, and to its present location in 1948. Before that it was used by a Presbiteiran Church, and had a porch surrounding the building. Now on land owned by the Emory L. Dicks family.
  

  Left click on the image below for a larger version.

  

  
  Sources: Ellen Puerzer. Zulima Martinez, Reference Librarian, Columbia County Public Library.
  Entered: June, 2009.
  Updated: August, 2010

Gadsden County.

• Old Mount Pleasant. Octagon house. Built in about 1872. The Malachi Martin house a.k.a. The Hermitage. Now gone. Located aprox 1 mile from Mt Pleasant Methodist church. Historical Nomination form considers it “a unique example of the octagonal house endorsed by Fowler and Martin came from New York where the fad started. Considered a carpetbagger when he came to Florida, he worked at a penitentiary in 1868 and was accused of prisoner abuse by using prisoners to work his land. He died in 1884. Then the house passed to a former slave who never lived in it. Considered to have been empty since 1912.
  
  The West Gadsden County Historical Society provides the following information.

  The history of Gadsden County, Florida's octagonal-shaped Malachi Martin House is intertwined into the history of Florida's first penitentiary. Martin was born in Ireland about 1823 and was a merchant in New York City at the beginning of the Civil War. He was an officer in the Union Army, serving in New Orleans, Louisiana and Key West, Florida. Following the war, the State of Florida began using the old arsenal property at Chattahoochee, Gadsden County, for a state penitentiary. Malachi Martin, one of Florida's leading carpetbaggers during Reconstruction, was made the warden of the prison. The state prison in Chattahoochee came to an abrupt end in 1877 after Martin was found using inmate labor for personal gain. A new state prison was built about this same time in northeast Florida.

  Martin had 200 acres of land five miles east of Chattahoochee in the present day Old Mt. Pleasant community. In about 1870, with the use of prison labor, he built an octagon-shaped house, which he named The Hermitage, and a vineyard and winery. Much of his wine was shipped to New York.

  In 1872, Martin was elected to the Florida House of Representatives and was Speaker of the House in 1874.

  Malachi Martin continued to live at The Hermitage and died there on August 29, 1884. He is buried on Long Island, New York.

  In the 1970s, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The octagonal-shaped house stood for over 100 years and was torn down by its owner in 1984.

  For further information, see: Career of a "Carpetbagger": Malachi Martin in Florida by Mildred L. Fryman; The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jan. 1978); Published by: Florida Historical Society.

  
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  Sources: R. Kline. Ellen Puerzer. West Gadsden County Historical Society. Paul R. Lusignan, Historian, National Register of Historic Places.
  Entered: September, 2002.
  Updated September, 2009
  Updated October, 2009

Lafayette County.

• Mayo. Octagon house. Built in the 1880s. Located on the corner of Bloxham and CLark streets, in northwest Mayo. Seven of eight sides have gables. James Mitchell was both the architect and the owner.
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  The top left photograph from the mid 1960s or before.
  
  Source: Wikipedia, list of octagon houses. Ellen Puerzer.
  Entered: August, 2008.
  Updated: March, 2010

Monroe County.

• Key West. Octagon house. The Richard Peacon, Jr., house. Built between 1892 and 1899. Purchased in 1980 by Calvin Klein. Located at 712 Eaton.
  

  Photograph.

  
  Sources: R. Kline. L. Kestenbaum. Dale Travis provides the photograph.
  Entered: July, 2002.
  Updated: May, 2004.

• Key West. Octagon house. Built about 1890. Located at 620 Dey Street.
  
  Tom Hambright relates the following:
  

  Key West. Octagon house. Built about 1890. Located at 620 Dey Street. two blocks to the northwest of Peacon House. Similar to the Peacon House although different rooflines. Klein house comes to a peak, whereas the Dey House has a gabled roofline with vent.. The house is still there. It is on the Sanborn map of 1899 and not shown on the 1892 map. It is now listed as multifamily and was sold in 2000 for $650,000. Unknown who built the house.

  
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  The above photo, left, was taken in the mid 1960s.
  
  Sources: R. Kline. Ellen Puerzer. Tom Hambright. Monroe County, Florida.
  Entered: August, 2007.
  Updated September, 2009
  Updated: May, 2010

Palm Beach County.

• Palm Beach. Octagon house. Built in 1937. The facade of (artiste) Boutet de Monvel's clapboard-covered octagonal house in Palm Beach, Florida, 1937. Image by Samuel H Gottscho. Folie Monvel, this lovely winter residence was designed for him by architect Maurice Fatio and completed in 1936; it opened to the admiration of friends and family with a cocktail party on 5 February 1937. The centerpiece of the structure was an octagonal living-dining room whose cypress boards were laid on the horizontal and punctuated by a series of doors (some mirrored, some clear glass) leading to four rectangular one-room wings. As a result the house, from above, looked a bit like a pinwheel or the handle of a faucet. And nestled between the wings were sunny flagstone terraces, each shaded by a pair of palm trees. All that remains today of Folie Monvel, however, seems to be the octagonal room, which has been landmarked and is incorporated into a larger house built a decade or so ago.
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  Source: Ellen Puerzer.
  Entered: January, 2010.

Pinellas County.

• Dunedin. Octagon house. Built in 1905. Located at 270 Scotland St. This is the first Duned home constructed of masonry blocks made on the premises. It was built by then mayor Walter Bull in 1905. To the rear of this house stood the two-room, two-story home of Capt. Kate Johnson. In 1911, Albert Goss and wife, Katherine Heffoner, came to Dunedin and later bought this house. Mr. Goss repaired watches and clocks in his home. Mrs. Goss taught violin and piano for over 50 years in Dunedin."
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  Source: Ellen Puerzer.
  Entered: Octagon, 2009.

St. Johns County.

• St. Augustine. Octagon house. Built around 1880 for R. N. Clapp, of St. Louis, Missouri, who had wintered in St. Augustine, following a trend set after the US Civil War. Located at 62 Lighthouse Avenue.
  
  Photograph, .
  possibly taken in the 1950s.
  
  Photograph, .
  Taken June, 2004.
  
  Source: R. Kline
  Entered: June, 2001.
• St. Augustine. Octagon house. Built 1892-1893 for Colonel John J. Upham. Located at 268 St. George Street. Two story. Ecletic style.
  
  

  Left click on the image below for a larger version.

  

  
  It's hard to tell from the photo above that it is an octagon house.
  
  Source: Ellen Puerzer.
  Entered: April, 2009.

St. Lucie County.

• Fort Pierce. Octagon house. Built in 1912. Demolished in 1965.
  
  

  Left click on the images below for larger versions.

  
  
  The overhead images above show a house at 605 South 7th Street. But the house appears to have a hexagonal roof line, and is rather farther back from the street than the newpaper piece above suggests. Whether this is the same house needs confirmation. It apparently is the only hexagon or octagon house along 7th Street in year 2011.
  
  Source: Ellen Puerzer. Fort Pierce News Tribune March 26, 1961. Linda Hudson, Volunteer, St. Lucie County Library.
  Entered: March, 2011.
  Updated: March, 2011