A Difficult Present
21 Spring Street became apartments after the Earle family sold the property in the 1890s. The apartments were rented by hatters and others up until the last five years. Vijay Nair, a long-time librarian at WestConn, rented the ground floor rooms in the late 1980s after the house had been added to the National Register of Historic Places by the Attick family.
In 1980 the Danbury Historic Preservation Trust put together a special supplement, "The Future of the Past," to the News-Times regarding historic buildings in Danbury. The Danbury Preservation Trust chose the octagon house as a symbol of Danbury's lack of a strategic vision for and misguided measures toward the preservation of its historic buildings.
Despite Danbury's octagon's status as a historic place, the house, like the area around it, suffered from fluctuations in the Danbury economy. Danbury's example of the "Home For All" went into foreclosure and became a home for the homeless, vagrants and drug addicts who utilized its sheltered porticos and well insulated rooms to shelter from the elements.
In July, Mayor Boughton, likely a distant relation to the Starr and Earle families, announced the City's plan to purchase the property and create a police sub-station on the premises.
While the fate of the Danbury Octagon house is unknown, we remain optimistic that this uniquely American remnant of a 19th century attempt to bring utopian ideals into reality will endure.