Zimmerman, Ezekiel B., Octagon House

On the ground floor a wooden porch extends around four sides, with form of the main roof. Originally there were four chimneys, of which three remain. On the east side of the house is a wooden one-room letion of the house. The rooms of the first floor are arranged in a radiating plan leads, in a clockwise direction, to the front parlor (or library), a side a back parlor, and the dining room which connects again with the addition, and there is another kitchen entrance from the back parlor. The woodwork is cherry with late nineteenth century carved designs. added under the stairs on the first floor. The second floor has four bedrooms connected by the center hall, and a large triangular bathroom rooms, one on either side. The woodwork is some sort of fruit wood and very simple in design.

of the cupola can be seen between the chimneys which bend at an angle. central furnace was installed in 1896. With the exception of the lavatory CONDITION Excellent One chimney was removed at the floor level to support a large water The central stairwell is square in shape and has masonry bearing at the edges. At the center there is an octagonal cupola with a round- standing seams, and creates its own gutter system by curving upward addition, there have been no important alterations to the building.

dows have plain horizontal stone lintels.The roof has four gables, cupola.The exterior walls are three bricks thick, and more than This is an eight-sided red brick house in the Octagon mode, with walls.The spiral stairway goes up to the attic.A small lavatory was characteristic Eastlake incised ornament and brackets.The floor has There is wainscoting in the dining room. 99,0o0 bricks were used, all of which were made on the property. house.

The Zimmerman house is a rare and unusual variant of the Octagon mode. Built almost twenty years after the height of the to make it virtually unique. The builder Ezekiel B. Zimmerman was designed the house himself. his family from Pennsylvania to Chippewa Township in 1812 at the and attended Smithville Academy. He later received a certificate after completing a correspondence course from the Chautauqua owned approximately 320 acres at the location where the house was to be built, at the time of his death in 1876. It is believed that Zim- merman and a local carpenter planned the house, consulting only an architectural book. The floor plan is basically the one described in Section V of Orson Fowler's A Home for All. The "beautifully outbuildings shortly thereafter.

and planting rare and imported trees. He also served as a Chippewa electricity from a Delco Electric Plant. restoration by the present owners. 1883 Communications Architecture Transportation Commerce REGISTER Theater losophy SIGNIFICANCE Religion/Phi RECEIVED Aboriginal Conservation Zimmerman was a progressive farmer, building a greenhouse itarian Agriculture Music remained in the Zimmerman family until 1973.It is undergoing Sculpture Political age of four.

In 1843 he married his second wife Rachel (Rebecca fashion was past, its four steep gables and Eastlake ornament seem the first in the area to have central heating, installed in 1896,and Correspondence School.He married Frances Hessin 1877.His father Ezekiel B.was born in 1848.The son graduated from high school After passing to his second son Ernest in 1937,the house Social/Human Zimmerman's father, Ezekiel Zimmerman, was brought with Township trustee and as a school director, was a member of the Urban Plaming an unusually enterprising and well-educated man, and apparently according to the county marriage records) Ann McClellan, and Baptist Church and a Republican in politics.