Edward A. Brackett House

The Brackett House is set back from the east side of Highland Avenue, a north–south route through the east side of Winchester. The house, as built in the early 1850s, is a distinctive design made by Brackett, an eccentric artist and naturalist, that adhered fairly closely to recommendations of Orson Squire Fowler in the first edition of The Octagon House: A Home for All, the work which set off a brief period of interest in those houses. It consisted of a series of four interlocking octagons, with varying heights and roof lines to create interesting visual effects. A fifth octagonal unit was added by Brackett in c. 1900 which added a shed space on the first floor and a bedroom on the second, along with a veranda. The building was originally finished in vertical board-and-batten siding and trimmed with then-fashionable Italianate brackets under its eaves, but these features were removed during the 1900 renovations, and the building exterior was redone in stucco.[2]

Edward Brackett was a distinctive local personality, trained as a sculptor but also a poet and conservationist. He established a fish hatchery nearby, and ran a commercial nursery. He lived in the house until his death in 1908.[2]

• List of octagon houses
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Winchester, Massachusetts