The history of the regional house style that became one of the most recognizable in American. The Cape Cod, or just cape, is a modest and practical house, a true colonial design that for millions of people says, "home."

Cape Cods are short, stout, and simple; their interiors are centered on the hearth-warmed kitchen. From the mid-1600s to about 1850, capes were built all across New England and as far west as Michigan, homes to fishermen and farmers, to city dwellers and shipwrights. Their low-slung design meant they were economical, easy to build, and generally impervious to the bracing winds that swept in from the ocean or lakes. They could be enlarged by equally symmetrical wings, and if you couldn't afford clapboards all around, you could easily sheath the back and sides with inexpensive cedar shingles and let them weather to a stormy gray.

This classic book is as simple, elegant, and accessible as the houses it describes. You'll gain a new and deep appreciation for regional architecture that became the common American house.

Ask any child to draw a house, and what you will probably get is a symmetrical structure of one and a half stories with a door in the middle and a window on either side - in other words, a "Cape." From the mid-1600s to the 1850s, capes were the standard New England home, providing farmers and fishermen, city dwellers and country folk with houses that were easy to build, economical, and whose low-slung design stood up to the bracing winds that swept in from the ocean. After World War II, these straightforward practical designs were adapted to twentieth-century living. Here is the history of these charming homes, accompanied by detailed and elegant pencil drawings illuminating everything from the wallpapers to the floor plans.