The Round House is a cylindrical, wood-frame residential building at 36 Atherton Street in the Spring Hill neighborhood of

Somerville Somerville may refer to: Places Australia *Somerville, Victoria, a town **Somerville railway station * Somerville, Western Australia, a suburb of Kalgoorlie, Australia New Zealand * Somerville, New Zealand, a suburb of Manukau City, New Zea ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, United States. It was built in 1856 by hardware manufacturer Enoch Robinson, and is considered an offshoot of the

octagon house Octagon houses are eight-sided houses that were popular in the United States and Canada mostly in the 1850s. They are characterized by an octagonal (eight-sided) Floor plan, plan and often feature a flat roof and a veranda that circles the hous ...

-style popularized by

phrenologist Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or ...

Orson 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 ...

. The exterior of the Round House features two flush stories, with a third stepped back behind a series of

battlements A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

and

embrasure An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of Age of Gunpowder, gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions (merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a sp ...

s. Inside, the three-story structure contains a central

rotunda A rotunda () is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (an example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). ...

topped with a glass skylight, with interconnected rooms branching off on each level. There are four rooms on the first floor, six rooms on the second floor and another four rooms on the third floor.

History

The home was vacant by 1970 however during a 1986 restoration program, students from

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

North Bennet Street School North Bennet Street School (NBSS) is a private vocational school in Boston, Massachusetts. NBSS offers nine full-time programs, including bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, carpentry, jewelry making and repair, locksmithing and security t ...

did a small amount of work renovating the exterior, but the project fell apart and the house remained in a state of decay. Historic Massachusetts (now Preservation MASS) placed the building on its list of Endangered Historic Resources for 1997. In the early 2000s, the privately owned house was unoccupied, its windows removed to the interior of the house, and the openings were covered with plywood. Its ornamentation was largely removed, and all of the ceilings were severely damaged from water. Somerville Round House December 2015

By April, 2007, the Round House had been purchased by a local man who is also president of a general contracting firm. Signs placed on the property in early January 2008 advertised nearby Diamond Edge Construction, and the thick brush filling the yard was largely removed. According to a letter from Brandon Wilson, executive director of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission, the building and property would be completely restored and would function as a single family residence when complete.

References

External links

Article
from Centers and Squares
Image
from ER Butler {{Coord, 42.38444, N, 71.10761, W, display=title Houses completed in 1856 Rotundas in the United States Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Somerville, Massachusetts

History

References

Further reading

External links