The Octagon House

Location: 90 Mixer Street, Douglas
Date: 1859

The Octagon House in Douglas was built for riverboat Captain Charles S. Mixer and his wife Julia. It is perfectly typical of the Octagon houses popularized by New York architect Orson Fowler, with broad porches and large windows for its day, and a tin roof with drains to transfer water to cisterns for household use. Fowler’s “Octagon” anticipated the 20th-century house in that rooms were arranged to open on one another, usually flowing from the center, rather than a sequential progression of room after room. The practical-minded Fowler was designing for the servant-less housewife of the 1860s when he said, “I submit this point to the special consideration of every housekeeper, and leave them to say whether they could not do TWICE THE WORK with the same ease in the octagon.” He proposed that children should have their own rooms, that air circulation be addressed by way of many windows, a veranda, and a cupola, and that built-in closets replace expensive furniture. Rainwater was to be filtered for drinking purposes, and the kitchen placed at the heart of the house instead of the usual custom of placing it as an attached back room. Over a thousand octagon houses were built in the United States in the1850s and 1860s. Captain Mixer provided transport between Saugatuck and Allegan on his boat. He was also a land speculator, and he and his wife had the “Mixer Addition” to Douglas platted and recorded in 1867.