The John Hosford 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 along

U.S. Route 20 U.S. Route 20 or U.S. Highway 20 (US 20) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway that stretches from the Pacific Northwest east to New England. The "0" in its route number indicates that US 20 is a major coast-to-coast route. S ...

in Monroeville,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Built at an unknown point in the mid-nineteenth century, it has been named a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

. Monroeville's first settlers arrived in 1816, and the village was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted in the following year, but

incorporation Incorporation may refer to: * Incorporation (business), the creation of a corporation * Incorporation of a place, creation of municipal corporation such as a city or county * Incorporation (academic), awarding a degree based on the student having ...

was achieved only in 1868. During the years of slow growth, merchant John Hosford settled in the community, and he accumulated enough wealth to erect a

fanning mill Winnowing is a process by which chaff is separated from grain. It can also be used to remove pests from stored grain. Winnowing usually follows threshing in grain preparation. In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into th ...

in the village in 1870. By this time, he had built his house in a style popular for only a short while, the

octagon mode Octagon buildings and structures are characterized by an octagonal plan form, whether a perfect geometric octagon or a regular eight-sided polygon with approximately equal sides. The oldest known octagon-shaped building is the Tower of the Win ...

; its precise date of construction is uncertain, with traditional accounts specifying 1856 and later studies suggesting 1862.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 2.

St. Clair Shores St. Clair Shores is a suburban city bordering Lake St. Clair in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms a part of the Metro Detroit area, and is located about northeast of downtown Detroit. Its population was 59,715 at the 2010 ce ...

: Somerset, 1999, 787-788. Hosford's house is a brick structure with ancillary elements of concrete. A true octagon, it features two windows on each side; a

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

adorns the sides facing the street, and a

belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa *Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco *Belvedere, Harare, Zim ...

crowns the roof.,

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2010-02-13. The overall design mixes architectural styles;

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

influence is clear in the construction of the main entrance, but the rest of the house is dominated by the

Italianate style 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 R ...

, including the arches and braces that lend the veranda the appearance of an

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

. Inside, each floor consists of five chambers: a spiral staircase at the center, surrounded by four rectangular rooms. In May 1974, the John Hosford House was listed on 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 v ...

, qualifying based on its historically significant architecture. It was added to the Register little more than two months after Huron County's first such locations, the

John Wright Mansion The John Wright Mansion is a historic farmhouse located east of Bellevue in northwestern Huron County, Ohio, United States. Built in 1881, it represents an unusual combination of location and architectural styles. A native of England, John Wr ...

near

Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to: Placenames Australia * Bellevue, Western Australia * Bellevue Hill, New South Wales * Bellevue, Queensland * Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales Canada ...

and the West Main Street Historic District in Norwalk. Two other buildings in Monroeville, the Seth Brown House and Zion Episcopal Church, were listed on the Register on the same day and the Hosford House.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosford, John, House Houses in Huron County, Ohio Italianate architecture in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Huron County, Ohio Octagon houses in Ohio U.S. Route 20