Cape Cod Home Architecture

Have ever come across a home that displays a proud chimney at its very elevation centre? Chances are you have seen a Cape Cod Home.

Builders create a Cape Cod home with a low, broad frame and a moderately steeped gable roof over a single-storied structure that displays very little ornamentation. This style originated in the 17th century New England and was mostly symmetric in design. As the name suggests, the stormy weather in Cape Cod shaped this style as a structural response. The materials used, thus, were obviously local in nature. Certain features of this house were self descriptive such as a central front door contiguous with multi panel windows. Upper floors had gabled roofs, sometimes with windows, and were often left unfinished. The gable ends were at times provided with windows.

Cape Cod Home Architecture
Cape Cod Home Architecture
Cape Cod Home Architecture
Cape Cod Home Architecture

The central chimney played a very important role in regulating interior temperature. Its considerable size provided heat and light to adjoining rooms, ensuring optimum comfort in all clustered spaces around it. Builders enhanced insulation by applying cedar shingles as exterior cladding and roofing material. They also constructed the roof steep enough to rapidly shed snow and rain.

This style blossomed in the 1930s-1950s simultaneously with the Colonial Revival architectural detailing. Its still one of the most sought after construction styles in architecture. The original Cape Cod homes were devoid of Dormer Windows. However, the 1920s saw the addition of this detail frequently, often in pairs. With time, homeowners and builders made this feature one of the defining characteristics of Cape Cod Homes, alongside the steep gable roofs.

The Cape Cod home, a classical piece of American architecture, withstood the typical New England weather. Its simplicity and charming appearance kept it popular and in high demand for the next three decades. Many other styles were extruded out of this construction style, some of which continue to be popular designs even today. The concept of Modernism-Form follows Function- forms the crux of construction guidelines of a Cape Cod Home.