What Is Cape Cod Architecture? (2024)

Cape Cod architecture is one of American architecture's most popular and easily recognizable styles. Named after the Massachusetts coastal region where it is the signature style, Cape Cod houses are ubiquitous in New England and can be found across the United States.

Admired for its simple, timeless, clean-lined rectangular silhouette, steep roof, and central door, a Cape Cod house is likely what a child would draw if you asked them to draw a house. Homey and effortlessly appealing, the Cape Cod house style is the definition of cookie-cutter comfort-food architecture that has stood the test of time.

What to Look for in a Cape Cod Home

While their sizes vary, different types of Cape Cods are known for sharing a few common characteristics:

• Basic rectangular shape
• One story plus a half-story second floor
• Steeply pitched roof
• Central chimney
• Center door
• Low ceilings
• Shutter-clad and dormer windows
• Cottage-like landscaping

Cape Cod architecture is one of the most instantly recognizable home styles in the United States. At its core, an original Cape Cod house is a small, rectangular, unadorned one to one-and-a-half-story cottage with side gables and a steeply pitched roof to keep snow from piling up. A big central chimney and low ceilings helped keep the house warm.

The massive central chimneys, particularly popular in New England Capes, were often reduced in size as heating technology advanced, and chimneys were displaced to the side of the house in homes built in warmer climates outside the region, such as the South.Multi-paned wooden shutter-clad windows flank a central door with simple surrounds.

The original blueprint is often doubled to accommodate the desire for more space, with wings added to the back or sides. Cape Cod houses have three main variations: half, three-quarters (also called Saltbox-style Cape), and full Capes according to the size of their footprint, chimney placement, and the size, positioning, and number of windows. The full Cape is considered the ideal specimen of the form, a symmetrical rectangular house with a massive central chimney and entry door flanked by double windows on each side.

In the 1920s, people began inserting dormer windows into the roofs to increase light and ventilation and create extra bedrooms. Cape Cod revival houses from the mid-20th century are often more embellished than the austere early models. Still, simplicity remains a visual hallmark of this somewhat minimalist but undeniably cozy home style.

Materials Used in Cape Cod Architecture

Cape Cod houses were traditionally constructed using hardy local materials that could stand up to the harsh New England winters, such as:

• Oak and pine wood post and beam framing
• Oak and pine wood flooring
• Brick fireplaces
• Clapboard or cedar shake roof and side shingles left unpainted to weather in the elements as seen in original Cape Cod cottages
• Cape Cod-style exteriors were painted white with black shutters, which became a classic color combination starting with the revival of the mid-20th century, but today, other color combinations are common.

How to Decorate With Cape Cod Style

Cape Cod interiors have furniture with clean, traditional lines, simple, minimalist shapes, and a timeless cottage charm. They often featureplush sofas and accent chairs with deep-buttoned cushions. Pine or oak solid wood also gives the home a rustic feel while looking clean and refined.

Other room decor choices include early American handmade furniture like Windsor chairs, ladder back chairs, and wicker furniture. Nautical and coastal accents evoke windswept seashores. Ocean-inspired colors like sage green, aquamarine, and buttery beige tones give these homes a beachy, comfy vibe.

The original interior design of a Cape Cod house had two rooms: a living room and a primary bedroom, like the English “hall and parlor” homes upon which they were based. The original design concept has endured, but Cape Cod architecture has evolved over the last few centuries. Modern Cape Cod interior design is often achieved by opening walls to make larger spaces.

The Origins of Cape Cod Architecture

Cape Cod architecture is a quintessentially American style. Cape Cod houses originated when the style was introduced to the United States by English colonists in the 17th century, who adapted English half-timber hall and parlor houses to suit the bitter New England climate, creating a boxier, lower-slung silhouette to stand up to the elements.

The history of Cape Cod architecture continued as the original wave of houses in this style was built from 1690 to 1850. The second wave, Cape Cod Revival, was built from the 1920s to the 1950s and helped popularize the style, spreading across the United States.

In the 1930s, the Depression and Colonial Revival combined to make Cape Cod-style homes regain popularity as an economical building style. In the 1940s and 1950s, Cape Cod homes were a widespread answer to the post-war housing boom. Even in supersized 21st-century America, Cape Cod-style homes retain a nostalgic popular appeal with new builds of all sizes, from sprawling homes to tiny houses inspired by the original Cape Cod architectural style.

Interesting Facts About Cape Cod Architecture

• The Post-World War II suburbs were born in Levittown, Long Island, New York, in the country’s first planned community of identical rows of Cape Cod cottages built to cater to returning military vets.
• During the Colonial Revival of the mid-20th century, Boston architect Royal Barry Wills helped popularize modernized Cape Cod houses for the middle class by adding amenities like bathrooms, kitchens, and garages.
• How did Cape Cod architecture get its name? Reverend Timothy Dwight IV (1752–1817), the eighth president of Yale University from 1795–1817, branded Cape Cod-style architecture when he coined the term “Cape Cod House” after visiting the Cape in 1800.
• The Cape also has a lesser-known collection of roughly 100 midcentury modern homes, such as the Hatch House in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Many of these were built by self-taught Bohemian artists who created DIY homes and studios with local materials utilizing clean, modern lines.