Shingle Style Homes in Massachusetts

What is a Shingle Style house?

The Shingle Style is the great New England summer house: a rambling, easygoing home wrapped entirely in wood shingles that weather to soft gray. It arrived in the 1880s and ran to about 1905, the look of the seaside cottages Boston’s wealthy built along the coast to escape the city heat.

Unlike the busy Queen Anne houses going up at the same time, with their towers and painted trim and patchwork of materials, a Shingle Style house keeps things calm. The shingles cover everything, top to bottom, and wrap around the corners, with no corner boards and no contrasting bands.

Why it’s special

A Shingle Style house is designed to settle into its landscape. The gray shingles read almost like the rocks and weathered wood of the shore, and the long, low rooflines sweep down into deep, shaded porches. Inside, the rooms gather around a big central living hall, with the main staircase and an easy flow from room to room.

What it’s like to live in one

These are warm, relaxed houses, built for long summers and gathering. The central hall pulls everyone together, and the weathered shingles only look better with age. In Massachusetts they cluster along the North Shore, where Boston families built their summer cottages: Manchester-by-the-Sea, Pride’s Crossing, and Magnolia have the densest concentration, with more in Rockport and on Gloucester’s Eastern Point. The Berkshires have a grander inland version, and Cambridge holds Richardson’s Stoughton House of 1882, the house that started it all. Salt air is hard on shingles, so budget for reshingling along with heating and wiring.

Is it the real thing?

The test is the surface. Look at the house from across the street: is the whole exterior wrapped in shingles, gables and dormers and all, with no corner boards and no clapboard band at the bottom? Add a rambling, asymmetric shape, sweeping rooflines, and deep porches under the eaves, and you are very likely looking at a true Shingle Style. A Queen Anne of the same years will mix several materials and wear more painted trim. For classification we look for the unified shingle wall plus a build date in the 1880-to-1905 range, backed where possible by a historic-survey record or assessor date.