Harbor RestorationBeach Style Exterior, Boston

1. Cape Cod houses. The Cape Cod style has become so popular over the years that the houses are everywhere. This one is in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which includes the village of Woods Hole, home of the famous Oceanographic Institution, and is the place to catch the quickest ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. A period Cape Cod house is marked by a central chimney, a one- or 1½-story height and a shingled exterior. Later versions typically are more symmetrical and have dormers like the ones you see here. It’s easy to see why this style is so popular — its charm is undeniable.

The simplest and earliest versions of the Cape Cod house were 1½-story designs, two rooms wide and two rooms deep, with a fireplace and chimney centered in the plan. They are considered colonial houses in the sense that they were first developed in that era, but not in the sense of the familiar Colonial Revival house. Colonial Revivals are later creations related to Renaissance architecture and followed Georgian and Federal styles, chronologically. The colonial Cape Cod house is considered folk architecture. The homes were simple and built out of necessity with minimal decoration. That being said, 20th-century versions of Cape Cods, as we will see below, fall into a unique category where contemporary versions are often more detailed than their ancestors. Most have extensions to the original form and often include dormers, which were not typical in the earliest houses. The bond to predecessors is the compact floor plan of the primary structure with the signature side-gabled roof. The singular arrangement of windows and an entrance door without a porch roof further identify Cape Cods of today.

These are a little tiny on this expansive roof. Clearly, scale is Everything when adding a dormer!