It?s time to get away Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between rounding up historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in July 2016 and has been updated with the most recent information.
Of all the places to escape to during the summer, there are few that tug at our heart strings more than Cape Cod. And?surprisingly enough?a lot of our love for Cape Cod can be found in its stock of historic architecture.
Cape Cod was one of the first areas of North America to be settled by the British in the 17th century. As a result, the sorts of houses one finds down the Cape have evolved and descended from a type of 17th-century British residential architecture. Such houses were usually built of wood, and had only a few rooms on each floor that would be separated by a large central chimney. Of course, the typical house on Cape Cod isn?t an exact carbon copy of what?s found across the pond: Settlers adapted the architectural style to take on New England's harsh winters and heavy snowfall. Those alterations manifest in steep roofs, which help shed snowfall, and low ceilings that help concentrate heat in the winter. The houses are typically a single story, although sometimes a second story is cleverly hidden in the eaves of the roof.
This type of house became so prevalent on the Massachusetts peninsula that the phrase "Cape Cod house" has come...