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: *Somerville College, Oxford, a constituent college of the University of Oxford Places *Somerville, Victoria, Australia * Somerville, Western Australia, a suburb of Kalgoorlie, Australia * Somerville, New Zealand, a subur ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

-style popularized by

phrenologist Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...

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 (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

and

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

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

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. In a 1986 restoration program, students from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

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 te ...

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. Somerville Round House December 2015

Robinson Round House, Somerville, Mass Postcard 1913

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 Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...

, 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