The Octagon House, a historic survivor hidden in plain sight in downtown Washington, DC, has been in the back of my mind to visit “one of these days.” When I asked several people if they had ever been, it seems many had heard of it, but none had visited. My friend Claudia was game, so we set out for a guided tour last Saturday.

After a brisk and breezy ten minute walk down 18th Street from Farragut West Metro Station, I arrived and met up with Claudia, who had no trouble finding a parking space nearby. Surrounded by office buildings, the neighborhood has an air of desertion on the weekends. (Any nearby coffee houses and cafes are shut up tight, so if you are going on the 11 a.m. tour be sure to caffeinate at home or closer to the more lively area around the Farraguts!)

We joined several other intrepid visitors, including a multi-generation family who were interested in the ghosts reported to be lurking in various parts of the house. Another gentleman was more interested in the architecture. The tour did not disappoint on either score.

The first thing that I noted was the familiar face of the tour guide, Claire Morgan, who fairly recently joined the staff of my old office, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. I had no idea she did tours of the Octagon on the weekends, but was glad of it as she was an excellent guide. (Contact her if you want to donate any funds to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival or other parts of the work of the office!)

The second thing we all learned right off the bat was that the Octagon House is not quite octagonal, or at least symmetrically octagonal. If you count all sides (including the front portion as three) it sort of has eight sides, and has a symmetry, and certainly has a unique shape which was necessary due to the particular piece of land that the original builders had to deal with.

We also learned that the house used to have an amazing view of the Potomac River from its upper floors, which seemed highly unlikely now, but in the early 1800s was possible. One can imagine how the house and the surrounding area looked in the early 1800s, and in fact you can visualize this thanks to one of several paintings which “recreate” the house’s setting and how the rooms might have looked during their glory days (circa. 1800-1855). It was the winter town home of the Tayloe family, who had a massive plantation in the Tidewater. (Poor Mrs. Tayloe had fifteen children, we learned.)

Since the Tayloe’s left the house empty for much of the year, and considering its proximity to their domicile, it became a logical sanctuary for Dolley and James Madison when the British very rudely burned down the White House during the War of 1812. The second floor office became known as the Treaty Room when Monroe signed the Treaty of Ghent ending the war in 1814.

Along with a visit to the first and second floors, the tour includes a peek into the downstairs kitchen and housekeeper’s bedroom. (I admit to getting sort of creepy feeling in the small and cramped housekeeper’s bedroom, though no ghosts seemed directly associated with that space.) The Tayloes brought some of their enslaved workers with them in the summers, and they just slept wherever they worked, on palettes on the floor, in the outbuildings, or in the kitchen. The housekeeper had an actual bed, though it was one of those ones with the ropes holding up the straw mattress that had to be super uncomfortable.

One of the most interesting parts of the tour was learning about the material of the fireplaces facades, and the columns at the front of the house. These were fashioned from Coade Stone, an artificial composite stone which was all the rage back in the day. This stone could be put into molds and made into many shapes and forms. Manufactured in Lambeth, England, the Coade Stone company was run by Eleanor Coade, surely one of the most successful early business women of her day, which is an interesting story in and of itself.

The second floor also houses exhibitions of contemporary architecture, since the Octagon is on the grounds of, and now owned and maintained by, the Architects Foundation. If you visit, give yourself some extra time to view these exhibitions after the tour.

Here are some snaps of our visit, illustrating some of the highlights above. In short, the Octagon is worth a visit if you live here in the DC area, or are planning a visit from further afield, and want to play tourist on a Friday or Saturday.