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Here is 15 Cherry Lane which some might say is built in the "New England Revival Style." Except for the fact that the roof line is very straight is indiscernible from houses built two centuries earlier. A new appreciation for very old houses became the fashion at the start of the 1940s and many have been built since that time. They are invariably bought and sold as "Cape Cods" although the owners rejected the austerity that comes with that style.

The replicas were usually enlargements of the originals and that created problems. One could add a large dormer to the design to fit in a bathroom on the second floor but that was usually an unsuccessful choice in terms of the historic look. It was possible to locate this dormer on the back slope but this also distorted the look if less blatantly.

Here is the best solution a kitchen ell fitted with a dormer which cannot be seen from the street elevation. The absence of a big central chimney may not mean much but unless the builder is a stickler for detail the foundation is likely to be poured concrete rather than of field stone or brick construction.

Doors are sometimes exact replicas but over-the-counter versions often have a light or lights in the upper panel. The doubling of windows in a squared configuration is also revealing, our ancestors did not typically do that at the gable ends or elsewhere.

The vertical sash windows are certainly OK but these sliders, even when built of wood, are heavier when it comes to the glazing bars A lot of folk like to put outside shutters on colonial homes as well as their replicas, but this owner is more astute. Neoclassic homes sometimes had shutters on windows inside the house and wherever they put them they were never merely decorative. On approach, if window bars turn out to be plastic, the jig is up! Aluminum gable vents and skylights are not necessarily indicative of a reproduction but help point in that direction.

Even authentic houses of the distant past suffer when a shed dormer finds its way to the roof top. The reasons for doing this are clear enough and it is an economical way of obtaining more space but it often weakens the structural integrity of the roof in addition to creating an instant mid-twentieth century look. A few homes from that time were actually constructed with dormers like this as an integral part of the design. By contrast, the house at left is entirely in harmony with its time and the past.