In 1913 Hill Auditorium replaced science professor Alexander Winchell's 1858 brick octagon house. It was among several large homes on North University, one of four tree-lined boulevards surrounding the original campus. Harper's Weekly reported in 1880, "The enormous college piles that almost crowd each other on the forty-acre campus are mainly severely plain, but are all the more impressive in consequence. Facing them around the sides of the campus are many stone and brick fraternity houses, many frame dwellings, and a block or two of shops." In the twentieth century, Winchell's entire neighborhood was replaced by the University's northward expansion of cultural facilities.
Alexander Winchell built the octagon house as his residence after he was appointed at the University in 1853 as chair of Physics and Civil Engineering, later switching to geology, zoology and botany. He was enthralled with the new octagon form of architecture, which was the innovative design of Orson S. Fowler. Fowler's book, Home For All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of Building, was published in 1850. This début of Fowler's octagon house resulted in its immediate success, and the style kept its popularity for the next 20 years.
