Thursday, February 03, 2005

Round about N.C.

Orson S. Fowler, a mid-19th c. phrenologist and social reformer with ties to Walt Whitman, thought the best shape for a house was a circle. But given the difficulties of construction, he said an octagon would do. Preservation of such a house in Cedar Point, N.C., is the story of the week at Preservation Online.

Too bad the news wasn't so good for the Coast Guard station at Kill Devil Hills recently sacrificed to development.

Fowler would be pleased to know about the two mid-20th c. round houses over on S. Duke Street in Durham, which are written about in the current Oxford American (not online).

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