Easter Egg: Octagon House Shows True Colors

The Octagon House—more officially, the Armour-Stiner House—on West Clinton Avenue in Irvington is one of the great architectural amazements of our area. (It's only a little less extraordinary-looking in real life.)

The octagonal architectural pattern was a mid-19th Century innovation, promising more interior room than a rectangular house with the same perimeter, and other efficiencies. Octagonal houses were promoted by Orson Squire Fowler, an amateur architect. (Fowler was also under the mistaken impression that he had discovered the method of building with concrete, actually already an advanced technique in the Roman Empire.)

Most octagon houses were small, simple, plain affairs (including Fowler's in Fishkill). Irvington's floridly ornate, domed and colorful specimen is very unusual if not unique.