This beautiful Italianate-style house with the bright yellow door is known as “The Moorings.” It was built in 1864 and sits on Main Street near downtown Chatham in Cape Cod.
The current owners hired the architecture and construction firm Polhemus Savery DaSilva to restore the house to the way it looked in historical photographs.
Here’s how the front of the house looked before the renovation began a few years ago:
A lot of changes had been made to the house over the years that took away from its original character.
According to the architect’s website:
Antique photographs allowed precise recreation of the historical details of the unique entry hood-roof and brackets that had been removed. An arched attic window that had at some point been removed was replicated and installed. The decorative brackets that line the gables and overhangs were replicated and replaced in areas where they had been removed.
Here’s one of the old photographs of the house, circa 1918, that they’re referring to:
Isn’t it fun to see old photos like that?
The house used to have shutters and a more elegant gable above the front door.
Here’s a close-up of the restored exterior:
For their work on this house, they were awarded the 2010 Chatham Preseration Award.
It’s believed that one of the original owners, Rear Admiral Charles Rockwell, built the octagonal gazebo on the side of the house in the early 1900s.
For more information about the remodel, visit Polhemus Savery DaSilva.
Thanks to them for sharing it with us. Photography by Brian Vanden Brink.
Julia, great score. I love the home you featured. How sweet of John to send you a copy of his book. Shingle Style is my all time favorite. I want to live on the New England Seaboard.
I think my favorite thing ever is seeing old photos of properties! I’m so jealous! My home is from 1816 and would do (almost) anything for a picture like that! They certainly deserve the award!
that floor in the foyer is gorgeous as is the rest of the home.
nanne in columbus, indiana
Love a shingle style home! Great illustration of how something old can be made wonderful, current and fabulous. The details in older homes are so wonderful and add so much character. Many are things people today aren’t willing to pay for (real wood built-ins are not cheap) and there aren’t as many skilled craftsman around. They do exist and it is worth the investment, but it is an investment.
Thanks for the tip on PSD, too! Good to know.
Lisa
Thanks Julia, what a beautiful house to enjoy my morning coffee with. Kudos to the design team.
Julia,
Love the before picture, the way before picture. The current picture tells me the owners love their house and it will be cared for. The coment about the old home details being an investment is right. Homes that are cared for and improved for more than resale value or return on investment show it. Sometimes the house just deserves a nicer door or mantle than what similar homes have. We also enjoy them too.
Hope Maizie likes spring, my 4 come in awfully wet and muddy sometimes.
rick
Those are some amazing parquet floors in the foyer! The kitchen is just brilliant as well. But I gotta say… that yellow front door is FABULOUS!
Just love this! I usually go for smaller, cottage type houses, but this is one I can imagine living happily ever after in!
As always, thanks for sharing such beautiful homes! Looks like they did a lot of great work during the restoration. I love the arched doorways – so elegant. Oh, and shingled houses? A dream of mine…for someday 🙂
Holy crap!! Whatever the architect charged the homeowners, he was worth every single penny. Stunning!
Julia – the next time you come home to Cincinnati – I recommend you see if you can get a tour of the old Pogue’s mansion in East Walnut Hills on Park Avenue. Friends used to own it for their business, but never had the money to fully restore the place. It was amazing then with its wood paneling, high ceilings, Rookwood fireplaces, and hidden staircases. They sold it more than 10 years ago and the new owners have done amazing things in restoring the space and landscaping. It still has a carriage house, gazebo, and greenhouse.
btw the yellow brick house on the right of it was built for the Pogue’s daughter. I worked in that house and it too was an amazing space.
I’m betting you could get a tour.
2312 Park Avenue, Walnut Hills
This splendid Queen Anne frame residence near Eden Park was the home of dry-goods merchant Henry Pogue of the H. & S. Pogue Company. Originally built around 1865, it was enlarged and remodeled in the late 19th century. It is one of the few Walnut Hills estates that has maintained its large lot size as well as its architectural integrity. Following an exemplary adaptive renovation, the Pogue mansion now houses the offices of Vivian Llambi & Associates, landscape architects. Here is an image of the house – but it doesn’t do it justice.
Oh, wow, I don’t think I ever saw that one. That area of Cincinnati has so many beautiful old houses. Thanks, Elaine!
Chatham is one of the most beautiful town on Cape Cod. Being a local girl I’m partial to anything about the Cape! I drool just driving around when we visit in the summer.
When is cocktail hour? How about in the gazebo at 5:00?
Beautiful restoration! Love the yellow door–not a color I would normally think of for a door, but does a great job of giving a distinct personality to an architecturally exquisite home.
Wow! I love theses houses .
Drooling over this one Julia. I would have liked to see the carriage house in the back. I wonder if it is still there and if it was also restored.
Good question about the carriage house!
Yes, the carriage house is still there and has also been brought back to its former beauty!
What a beautiful elegant house! They did a grate job…
kiss
Etta
I love this house, It’s beautiful inside and out. I really love the kitchen.
We use to spend our summer vacations in Harwichport,which is just south of Chatham. I remember this house on Main Street in Chatham, and I am pretty sure it used to be a bed and breakfast inn at one time. It is really a beautiful restoration.
Wow…what fantastic work! I am most impressed with the kitchen. They managed to update and modernize it, while keeping a much more classic look than what was there before!
Ahhh….and I’d be sitting in that gazebo with you! The Cape (as we natives call it)….still my favourite place in the world! These last 11 years in Ireland, and now on our way to France, but…the Cape still holds my heart. Cedar shingles, Cape Cod style or Italianate or Greek revival or Federal or Colonial…whatever yer havin’ yerself, as the Irish like to say…..they’re all there on the Cape.
JULIA,
Thank you so much for the lovely post. We are all thrilled and honored to be on your beautiful blog again! So happy you like the book, too.
My day is not complete without a visit to Hooked on Houses!
The best to you,
Marcia
Now this is how you do a restoration right. Great job to the designers and homeowners. This home is gorgeous!
My question is: why is it that people so long ago, before design blogs, home decor coffee table books and daytime design television, did design so much better?
Its not just the solid wood built-ins and the hand carved mantels. Its the proportions of the rooms, placement of windows and the myriad thoughtful details that make these homes so unique.
Good question, Lisa! 🙂
Please, please, please (pretty please with a cherry on top!) feature the Parrot-Camp-Soucy house in Newnan, Georgia. It is by far the most amazing Victorian I’ve ever seen, inside and out:
GPB (our PBS) did a special on it a few years ago. The gardens are the most elaborately maintained private Victorian gardens in the area and it has been a B&B off and on for decades.
What a gorgeous house! Thanks for the links, Brandy!
No problem, Newnan is chock full of gems like that.
It’s a treasure trove of Antebellum homes, Victorian, and even possible catalog homes due to its history of a.) not being burned by Sherman and b.) at one time being the wealthiest town in America due to steal and railroads
Beautiful. I just did a post on an Italianate home from Mobile Historic Homes Tour. They were very popular from 1840 until after the Civil War, their popularity was replaced by Victorian
Enjoyed seeing the photos in your post. Thanks!
I was thinking that this house didn’t look very Italianate to me, more Queen Anne. It’s missing the arched windows and elaborate window crowns that mark an Italianate house, but it doesn’t have the requisite Queen Anne porch. So, maybe it’s a transitional house between the two styles.
Gorgeous! Just Gorgeous!
Just plain lovely!
Interesting how this house went through several remodelings, but none of them ever wrecked the place. Each one seemed to respect the basic idea and fabric of the house.
Wow! Really gorgeous– love all the details around the doors, makes them so special.
What a beautiful house – of course I especially love what they’ve done to the kitchen
Mary x
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE, LOVE THE KITCHEN!! I ALWAYS ENJOY THE BEFORE AND AFTERS YOU FEATURE!!
Fantastic! Love the gazebo and the arched doorway inside the house. Heck, love it all. Thanks for sharing. Toodles, Kathryn @TheDedicatedHouse
Wonderful, wonderful house. Thanks for profiling it. Kuddos to the architects and the owners for their work.
Thank you Julia and everyone else for your positive comments! The Moorings is a stunning house. It was a real pleasure working with a client who loves it as much as we do and who wanted to take it to a better state. We recently transformed another classic Cape Cod house, Riptide, that is just around the corner from The Moorings. You can see it here on our web site. The interior photos are by Brian Vanden Brink (BVB). The exterior photos are just “scouting” shots and will soon be replaced by recent photos also by BVB.
Thanks, John!
Oh, my!! There is nothing I don’t like about this house! Perfection!
I am in love with this gorgeous house. I just LOVE how they renovated it. Classy! <3<3