Loren and Lucina Davis House
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Loren Andrus Octagon House (Loren and Lucina Davis House)
1859–1860, David Stewart, builder. 57500 Van Dyke Rd.
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(Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
This large, red brick, octagonal house is a landmark in a fruit-growing and agricultural center along Van Dyke Road. The two-story house is topped by a roof supported by large, ornately carved Italianate brackets and surmounted by a cupola. A one-story, Corinthian-columned porch surrounds seven sides of the house; a one-story kitchen wing addition extends from the eighth side. On each floor there are four rooms separated by large triangular alcoves. A spiral staircase rises through the center, from the first floor to the cupola. Loren Andrus (1816–1901), son of Michigan pioneers from Genesee County, New York, and assistant surveyor of the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal in Macomb County, engaged his brother-in-law, Stewart, who was a local carpenter-builder, to construct the octagonal house. By the 1980s the house had fallen into disrepair. Save the Octagon House, Inc., purchased the house in 1987, then promptly transformed itself into Friends of the Octagon House, Inc., and began restoring the house and gardens.
Writing Credits
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Data
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Location: Washington, MichiganRegional Overviews:Architect:Materials:
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Citation
Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Loren Andrus Octagon House (Loren and Lucina Davis House)", [Washington, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-MB4.
Print Source
Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 175-175.
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