The Albert S. Potter Octagon House, also known simply as the Octagon House, is an historic octagonal house

Octagon house

Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round...

 located at 4 Carolina Main Street (Rhode Island Route 112) on the corner of Shannock Hill Road in the village of Carolina

Carolina, Rhode Island

Carolina is a village that straddles the border of the towns of Charlestown and Richmond on the Pawcatuck River in Washington County, Rhode Island. Rhode Island Route 112 passes through the village...

 in Richmond

Richmond, Rhode Island

Richmond is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 7,708 at the 2010 census. The villages of Alton, Arcadia, Carolina, Hope Valley, Kenyon, Shannock, Usquepaug, Woodville, and Wyoming are located in Richmond.-History:The town of Richmond was originally part...

, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

. It was built by watchmaker Albert S. Potter in 1857. Potter reportedly did his watchmaking in the octagonal cupola

Cupola

In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

 atop the two-story house. The building is now covered with asbestos

Asbestos

Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

 siding and is owned by the Carolina Preservation and Band Society.

The Albert S. Potter Octagon House is a contributing property

Contributing property

In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...

 in the Carolina Village Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

on May 2, 1974.