What is a Cape Cod home?

A Charming Classic

Photo by Ted Wells

Cape Cod Cottage (1750-1850; 1940-1950)

Identifying features:

• Steeped roof
• Story-and-a-half house with single gabled ends
• Multipaned windows
• A ridge-centered chimney
• Absence of decorative exterior trim or ornamentation except for small window hoods and transom windows above the entry door

Within decades after arriving in America, English settlers throughout the colonies busied themselves constructing homes that were familiar to them. The half-timbered English house with its hall and parlor was their model, which they adapted to the climate and natural resources of New England. What emerged over ensuing generations was a distinct new development: what is now called the Cape Cod house.

Cape Cod style houses were built in New England from the late 17th century until about 1850. In the outlands of Cape Cod, materials and other resources were scarce, thus the houses were often more modest than elsewhere. Built on massive 10x10 oak sills so that the structures could be dragged on sand to other sites as the sand dunes shifted and changed the landscape, these diminutive houses were early America's version of the starter home.

Photo by 2000 Photos to Go

Offering little more than an entry porch and single room, they were almost entirely devoid of adornment. Over time, people added on to the houses, either doubling the half Cape or adding a wing to the rear. As families' need for space grew, dormers were cut into roofs to add more space, light and ventilation. "Shed" dormers ran almost the entire length of the houses, while "dog house" dormers were just the width of a window. Many old houses had dormers added in the 1920s, when new ideas about privacy and health led people to create more bedrooms.

Architects rediscovered the Cape Cod house in the 1930s, when both the Colonial Revival and the Depression combined to create a desire for small, economical, yet old-fashioned houses. The Cape Cod house received national publicity through books like Houses for Homemakers by Boston architect Royal Barry Wills. Wills' Capes featured the traditional massive central chimney. Instead of halls and parlors, the modern Capes had living rooms, dining rooms, large bedrooms, bathrooms and attached garages.

The Cape Cod house came into its own in the 1940s and 1950s. GIs returning from World War II were encouraged to buy homes for their growing families. Plans for Cape Cod homes by Wills and other architects were circulated nationally through the "House of the Month" scheme, which distributed plans and models to banks and savings and loans all over America. Planned estates like Levittown, New York, featured Cape Cod houses. Today, the charming Cape Cod style remains as one of America's most archetypal cottage-style houses. It appeals both to our strong sense of cultural heritage and our need to create a contemporary, yet quintessential, cottage home.

Source: Realtor.com

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