This odd but quite interesting shape for a house design was popularized in the 19th century by Orson Squire Fowler. In 1849 he wrote an interesting book espousing the octagon as an ideal design for a house, and across the US the design started to gain in popularity. It was estimated in 2006 that 17 of these octagonal houses were built in Rhode Island. The one shown here is in Richmond, and was built in 1857 by Albert S. Potter. It was rumored that Potter, a watchmaker, did his work in the beautiful cupola set atop the structure. The house is now owned by the Carolina Preservation and Band Society.
I wanted to go monochrome for this shot, but wanted something slightly off a traditional black and white. To accomplish that, I started in Topaz Adjust and applied a medium pop smooth filter. A second layer, also from Topaz Adjust was added using a dynamic 1 filter. That layer was then blended using soft light and a high pass filter at 4.0 pixels was imposed. This had the effect of sharpening the lines but not impacting the color tones. A sepia toned gradient map was added in color blend mode. Saturation was adjusted a bit, and a deep blue photo filter was applied. A levels adjustment improved the contrast and lighting, and the final layer was another hue and saturation adjustment to create the proper tones for the overall image.
@katesearle Thanks, Kate!
Thanks, everyone! I find the overall architecture to be fascinating. There are a bunch of these around the state, some pretty much "as is" and others incorporated into newer structures. I'll be posting more of them, for sure.
@meggageg Meagan, Yes I do live in RI. I'm a typical Rhode Islander - living within 3 miles of where I was born. LOL