The Summer Place

How casual, stripped-down luxury made Shingle Style the go-to for New England’s grand “cottages.”

The great Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully called the Shingle Style, which he coined in 1952, “the architecture of the American summer.” No wonder this born-in-New-England building type is so well loved. Relaxed, informal, wrapped in shingles with very little decorative trim, subtly rather than showily beautiful, and with names like “Breezyside by the Sea,” “Breakwater,” “Wave Crest,” and “Seacroft,” Shingle Style manses dotted the region’s rocky seacoast and its posh resort towns at the turn of the 19th century, capturing the essence of the new leisure class and sending out a very American declaration of architectural independence.

Featured in Yankee Magazine July – August 2023 issue.

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