Cape Cod (house)
architectural style
A Cape Cod house is a low, broad, single or double-story frame building with a moderately-steep-pitched gabled roof, a large central chimney, and very little ornamentation. Originating in New England in the 17th century, the simple symmetrical design was constructed of local materials to withstand the stormy weather of Cape Cod. It features a central front door flanked by multipaned windows. The space above the first floor was often left as unfinished attic space, with or without windows on the gable ends.
The building type enjoyed a boom in popularity and adaptation to modern needs in the 1930s–1950s, particularly with Colonial Revival embellishments. It remains a feature of New England homebuilding.
History
The first Cape Cod style houses were developed by early settlers in America in the 1600s. The design pulled inspiration from architecture in Britain and was modified to adapt to the winter conditions in the New England area. In the past, the architectural design of the Cape Cod house was defined by the central placement of the chimney as it provided warmth to all rooms during the cold months. The roofs of the Cape Cod houses were steep in order to quickly get rid of snow and rain, as a means to protect the structure of the house.
“Cape Cod (house)” enters the record as architectural style. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cape, house and architectural can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5034667. The Library of Congress control number is sh89005545. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cape Cod (house)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.