Keen-eyed readers might have noticed I sneaked a “Cape Cod” tag into my site a few years ago. But what exactly is a Cape Cod styled house? It is the most basic of houses in Western architecture: four walls creating a rectangle with a steep gabled roof above. Along the long side of the rectangle, which is three bays wide, there are usually two windows and a door in the middle. On the short sides, which are two bays wide, there are two windows. There may be dormers in the roof on one or both sides. The house style takes its name from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which is where the style first appeared, constructed by English colonists. The party line in American architecture says the Cape Cod is influenced by English architecture, but in reality the style is found throughout northern Europe, included but not limited to France and Germany. The Cape Cod flourished in the post-World War II suburban building boom due to its ease of construction and allowance for mass production.
I’m from St. Louis but for years have lived in Maine, where these houses, so common here across the centuries, are generally simply called “capes.”