American Houses: the original Cape Cod cottage. Sedgwick, Maine

This is about as close to an original Cape as you'll see. It's in Sedgwick, Maine. These were for a long time the standard house in rural and coastal Maine. Usually they were the 'starter' house that was added onto as years went by and families expanded. The classic configuration in Maine is Big house-little house-backhouse-barn, as in this example, just up the road. It's usually a 'summer kitchen' that connects the house to the barn.

But this Cape has none of that: perhaps there was a barn attached at one time, but it's gone now. Not even a shed dormer popped into the roof. Each time I pass it the house strikes me with its simple and organized beauty. It has something of the Shaker aesthetic. In Maine in the first half of the nineteenth century there would have been thousands of examples; in fact there still are, though rarely without the add-ons.