Holiday homes in America: Cape Cod has 75 miles of beaches and clapboard houses two hours from Boston

Cape Cod, two hours from Boston on the US’s eastern seaboard, is as American as apple pie and baseball, a pastel-pretty, cookie cutter vision of clapboard houses beside wide, sandy beaches.

The Cape is a 75-mile peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, 13 miles at its widest and just two at its narrowest.

It has 559 miles of coastline, 115 beaches, 53 harbours, 15 low-level towns and hundreds of miles of hiking and biking trails.

Where the Kennedy clan had their waterfront compound, it’s also where the Pilgrims landed in 1620, an event that will be marked by major celebrations next year for its 400th anniversary.

The harsh winters they endured remain but in summer, when the year-round population of 215,000 is bolstered by over a million holidaymakers, the weather is perfect, the gardens burst with colour and the seafood is superb.

Despite the careful preservation of the seashore, Cape Cod faces environmental issues. Warming sea waters are encouraging its famous lobsters to head north, while cod stocks are depleted.

Last summer there was a fatal shark attack on a surfer — Cape Cod was the setting for the film Jaws — and the Cape is taking this seriously, tracking sharks, while promoting its 365 lovely inland lakes, one for each day of the year.

“Cape Cod is all about the water, with property prices rising the closer you are to it,” says Ken Hager of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty. “Easy access to a beach and a boat, good views and a house that doesn’t require any work, that’s the typical wish list.”

Prices peak in Chatham, halfway along the Cape, while nearby the town of Orleans represents better value with ocean and bay beaches, crystal-clear lakes and equally pretty houses with crisp white and marine blue a favourite colourway when it comes to interior decor.

Towns with year-round activity include Orleans, Harwich and Hyannis but the latter is exceptionally busy in summer.

For homes with the best rental prospects head to Harwich, Orleans or Chatham, says Doug Payson of Kinlin Grover Real Estate: “In Chatham detached houses start from £630,000 while in Eastham, 20 minutes north, prices are nearer £315,000.

"Our average sale last year was £415,000 which buys a three-to four-bedroom Cape house away from these towns in a half-acre plot.”

Kinlin Grover is selling a handsome four-bedroom Cape house in Orleans with period fireplaces and large gardens for £550,000.

Sotheby’s has a spacious and well-crafted new four-bedroom house with expansive terraces and direct water access close to Nauset Beach in Orleans for £1,964,000.

Prime property overall represents good value compared with the Hamptons, says Ken Hager.

“Cape Cod has little crime, no real chain hotels and few fast-food outlets. We have beautiful country clubs and hotels like Eastward Ho! and Wequassett Resort, and charming guesthouses. This is what brings families back year after year.”

Clapboard houses painted soft white and pale grey make up the main architecture on the Cape. A “Cape house” refers to the simple homes the Pilgrims built 400 years ago, which remain highly desirable today.

However, hidden in the quiet woods near empty sandy beaches in Wellfleet stands a collection of homes built mostly in the late Fifties by Bauhaus-inspired Europeans.

“Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School, came to Harvard as Professor of Architecture and gathered a group of like-minded artists, writers and academics,” explains Peter McMahon, himself an architect.

“There were around 100 modern homes in the woods here, all but eight privately owned but when the National Seashore was created in 1961 the National Parks took ownership of seven. Not realising the architectural importance, they left them to deteriorate.”

Inspired by the homes and saddened by their derelict state, McMahon set up the Cape Cod Modern House Trust in 2007 to restore the houses and relaunch them as creative spaces.

Today he has four on a long lease from the National Parks and has laboriously restored them for rental. Do not expect luxury. It’s more like comfortable camping in coastal forests.

Hatch House is a minimal and rustic modular house overlooking the sea on the bay side of the Cape, built in 1961 without electricity and with an outdoor shower.

As far as possible, McMahon puts back furniture and contents as they’d have been then.

The Kohlberg House, empty for 20 years, is ready for rental this summer. Any nature-loving artist would be inspired by its seaside location.

The homes are also used for retreats for Harvard’s architectural practice and for artist residencies.

“A few days in these houses changes the way you think,” says McMahon. “You get a commanding, connected relationship with nature.”

Rentals start from £2,360 a week in June and September.

A Little Inn on Pleasant Bay in Orleans is one of Cape Cod’s most charming and welcoming guesthouses with nine rooms open from mid-May to mid-October.

The house is grey-shingled with flower-filled gardens and lawns beside a cranberry field overlooking the bay.

Inside it has solid wood floors and whitewashed walls and is decorated with style and comfort. The oldest part of the building dates back to 1798.

The owners’ extensive local knowledge of beaches, shops and restaurants have helped A Little Inn on Pleasant Bay to win a five-star TripAdvisor rating.

Rooms start from £195 in low season to £275.

Tailor-made holiday specialist America As You Like It has a Cape Cod break from £1,260 per person, based on two sharing, including Heathrow to Boston return flights, five days’ fully inclusive car hire and five nights’ bed and breakfast at A Little Inn on Pleasant Bay.