Americans have always loved a good Cape Cod home. In 1938 when Life magazine asked families to choose their ideal place to live, the Cape Cod design was among those few selected, even when compared to an original modern home by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The design visionary may have had great ideas and some very attractive sketches, but he didn’t have hundreds of years of building tradition and a classic form recognized by everyone. Cape Cod designs are just as popular today, and will likely continue as one of the nation’s most enduring building styles.
The Cape Cod style dates back to the earliest period in American and Atlantic Canadian colonial history. These first homes in the 1600s were un-adorned and practical, built for year-round comfort in the windy, cold Eastern Seaboard climate. Scarce natural resources for building also helped keep these homes simple and small, with little deviation in design, and typically rock or plaster exterior walls.
Early Cape Cod homes had a narrow rectangular shape, with a steep pitched roof to keep winter snow from accumulating. Rarely built with upper floor dormers, these homes tended to have a...