Williams and Stancliff Octagon Houses
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The Joseph Williams Octagon House and the Gilbert Stancliff Octagon House are once-identical historic mid-1850s octagon houses located next to each other at 26 and 28 Marlborough Street in
Portland, Connecticut Portland is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 9,384 at the 2020 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place (CDP). It is situated across the Connecticut River from Middletown. Brown ...
. Constructed of Portland brownstone in the 1850s, they are distinctive as the only known pair of little-altered octagon houses in the state. The pair of houses, also known as the Octagon House Pair, was added to 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 ...
in 1976.


Description and history

The two octagon houses are located just outside the town center of Portland, on the north side of Marlborough Street. They are set well back from the street, with a wide grassy expanse in between. Both buildings are two stories in height, with brownstone walls that have been finished in painted stucco. Each has an octagonal cupola at the center of the roof, and a single-story porch on the front facade, sheltering the main entrance. The Stancliff house's porch is a 20th-century replacement. The main roof eave on each house is adorned with carved wooden brackets. When evaluated for National Register listing in the 1970s, the building interiors appeared to be relatively little-altered, despite conversion of one of the buildings to apartments. and The two houses were built for Gilbert Stancliff and his brother-in-law, Joseph Williams, and his wife Laura. The stone for their construction came from the local brownstone quarry owned by Stancliff. They may have been built by Stancliff's brother Charles, who was a local builder.


See also

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List of octagon houses This is a list of octagon houses. The style became popular in the United States and Canada following the publication of Orson Squire Fowler's 1848 book ''The Octagon House, A Home for All''. In the United States, 68 surviving octagon houses ar ...
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National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Connecticut __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Connecticut. There are 123 properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United S ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams And Stancliff Octagon Houses Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut Octagon houses in Connecticut Portland, Connecticut Houses in Middlesex County, Connecticut Italianate architecture in Connecticut Houses completed in 1853 National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Connecticut