| Winterborn House |
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The eight-sided house in Hoosac, Minnesota where Alpheus Winterborn lived [The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, 70]. The house was built by Winterborn's father [65] at 20 Front Street, across from Monument Square, and described as having "domed roof and a silly little cupola on top that looked like a saltshaker. A lot of wooden doodads that looked like giant acorns hung from the eaves. The house was solidly built of brick, and it had a large backyard with swings and slides and a sandbox." The iron fence that ran round the entire yard had now rusted to pieces. Bushes now guarded the house from kids who cut back and forth across the yard on their way to and fro from school.
After Winterborn died his son sold the house because of his strong dislike of the structure. Dentist Harold Tweedy lived in the house around the time Anthony Monday began investigating the house during his search for the supposed Winterborn treasure. After Tweedy moves out of town, Briggs Sculthorp buys the property and, much to Anthony’s chagrin, discovers something belonging to Winterborn inside the walls.
Bellairs is correct when he writes several octagonal houses were built in America in the late nineteenth century [70]. One such building was located in Marshall and probably worked on the young Bellairs’ imagination growing up. According to Mabel Skjelver in her book, Nineteenth Century Homes of Marshall, Michigan, the house at 218 South Eagle Street is the only one of its type within the city limits, though there are numerous examples within Calhoun County. Increase Pendleton built it in 1856 with contributions from his son, William H. Pendleton. A small rear addition was added in the years preceding 1868; Morgan J. Alexander bought the house in 1875 and remodeled it extensively. The house still stands at the corner of Eagle and Hanover streets.
There is also an eight-sided house in Winona, Minnesota (the model for the city of Hoosac), built in 1855 and located at 317 Lafayette Street.
Incidentally, one of the oldest known octagon-shaped buildings is the Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece, which was constructed circa 300 B.C. It later inspired a similar looking building known as the Temple of the Winds at the Mount Stewart estate in Northern Ireland.
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Happiness Was an Octagon
Octagon House Inventory |
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| The Pendleton-Alexander House in Marshall, Michigan. |
| Photo credit: Sharri Bacon. |
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