Octagon House

Author’s Note: We, Ally and Megan, went to the haunted house in Pewaukee, known to most as the Octagon house, because we both were interested in what the owner thought of living in a house with ghosts that she couldn’t control if they were there or not. We walked down on a Friday after school, then showed up at her front door. We asked her several questions, and we got some useful answers. She seemed quite content with telling us about her experiences in the house. She was actually so relaxed, she asked us if we wanted a Coke!

By writing this piece, we wanted to accomplish successfully holding an interview and turning it into a report, including quotes from the interview.

There is a difference between a house and a home. A house is just a structure; a place that you can manage to make your life livable in. But a home is where you can be a family, make memories in, and feel perfectly safe. Margaret Kirley had these things running through her head when she bought the haunted house in Pewaukee, also known as the Octagon House.

People say that the house is haunted, but Margaret doesn’t think so. She’s never really witnessed it, but her nine kids claim that ghosts live within the walls of the octagon-shaped home. Rumor has it that the house was also part of the Underground Railroad, but Margaret says otherwise. “That’s what they say, but it’s never really been proven,” she told us.

The house has a unique octagon shape, and this always causes passing people to ponder on the thought of the form of the home. We asked her if she knew anything about it, and she did. “Back in 1850, there was an architect in New York named Hortson Fowler, and he figured out this unique design on how to utilize the space best, and he came up with this house,” she said. She also stated that Fowler wrote a book, but she did not tell us what it was about or why he wrote it.  

Besides the shape of the house, inside are many unique features. There are two Italian marble fireplaces right across the hall from each other, each placed in their own living room. Also, there was originally a spiral staircase located directly inside the front door, but a fire in the early 1870’s wrecked some of the interior of the house, including the staircase. The next owner who bought the house replaced it with a regular staircase, but it wasn’t your everyday railing. Beautiful carvings snake up the railings, all the way to the third floor.

The floors were also numbered different than your house’s probably were. The first floor is what you would consider the basement, and the second floor is what we would call the first floor, and so on.

Margaret moved into the house 47 years ago, in 1966, knowing that it was previously accused of being haunted. In fact, the newspaper headline stated “Haunted House in Pewaukee for Sale”. According to Margaret, “it was no secret.” After making themselves at home, the children started to notice strange things happening in the house.

Margaret told us that she has invited people over many times before, but has been denied because they were afraid of the house and what was inside it. She actually said a story based off of what the girlfriend of her son, Jeff,  told her. “My son’s girlfriend swears on a stack of bibles that this happened. She was talking to Jeff, but didn’t believe in the spirits here. She said, ‘If you are here, make your presence known!’ and immediately, a fire lit up in the fireplace.”

Another story she told us about was actually quite interesting. A man and his wife showed up at the front door, and they were just arriving from Kansas. The kids yelled to Margaret, and she rushed to the front door with curiosity. They needed a place to stay, so a nice big house with many rooms fit their needs. The only open room they had at the time was in the attic. “No way I’m sleeping in the attic! I’ve heard stories about this house before, why on earth would I want to sleep in the attic?” he asked her. She told him that they could put a cot in the upstairs hallway. He accepted the offer, so she set up the bed. Later that night, she heard something upstairs. She went to the bottom of the flight of stairs, and his face was, according to Margaret, “white as a sheet”. He shivered, then told her he saw a ghost. She did not believe him, she just figured that he was seeing the things he was worried about seeing.

Margaret is very proud of what she accomplished in the house. One of her sons still raises grapes in the backyard. She managed to keep the vineyard in good shape, and raise nine kids with the roof still on. People still think the house is haunted, along with her kids, but she still thinks that the house is just your everyday home, but with it’s own special characteristics.