People have always been drawn to Cape Cod. For centuries Native Americans, fishermen, sailors, farmers, professors, writers, families, the rich and the not-so rich have come to walk its beaches and cruise its waters. Today Cape Cod is more popular than ever but, thanks to a strong economy, it is has also never been more expensive to own a home here.
It is easy to see what makes the Cape so attractive. A narrow, bended arm of a peninsula extending out and up the Atlantic, it has more than 559 miles of coast, most of it covered with sandy beaches. Lapped by the Gulf Stream, it offers warmer winters and cooler summers than the rest of New England, a fact that has made it one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country.
Although the number of year-round residents has grown over the past decade, it is during summer that the Cape really comes into its own. The population swells from 200,000 to nearly 600,000 in the peak months of July and August. This means, of course, that the number of cars clogging the two main accesses to the Cape, the Sagamore and Bourne bridges, also triples and on major holiday weekends lanes of stopped cars have stretched for 12 miles.
Whether it is because of the terrible traffic or its maritime past--the Cape was named for the codfish that once teemed off its shores--most people who live on the Cape seem to prefer traveling by water. Nearly everyone owns a boat, from the lowliest dinghy to the latest in luxury yachts.
Like most of New England, the Cape had always been a bastion of Yankee asceticism, a place that looked down on ostentatious displays of wealth. No longer. The combination of its proximity to Boston and the high-tech companies that line Route 128, and its undisputed natural charm, has lured many newly-minted millionaires, as well as plenty of older ones, to build and buy increasingly expensive estates in the region's most fashionable villages.
Villages like Hyannis, Osterville, Chatham and Cotuit in particular have seen their property values skyrocket. While it is a fact that most plots are seldom more than 2 acres, enormous new homes, often with swimming pools, tennis courts and a guesthouse crammed in, appear each summer like mushrooms after a rainstorm. In some communities, the building has gotten so out of hand that local citizens have bound together to buy up and preserve their undeveloped land from wealthy outsiders.
Among those who have recently settled there are John Wilson, the former Gap chief operating officer, who bought a house--which he had first seen on the Internet--in Hyannis last year for $6 million. Maybe one of the reasons it cost so much is that it is located next door to the fabled Kennedy compound.
The area also boasts one of the highest concentration of Forbes 400 members in the country, including John E. Abele, Amos Barr Hostetter Jr., Abigail Johnson, Nicholas M. Peter, Thomas Haskell Lee, and Edward Crosby Johnson III.
Nevertheless, like many desirable locations, the Cape seems to be able to absorb the hordes of new residents. Old-timers grumble and claim the place is going to hell but in spite of it all, on a summer afternoon as the light fades to dusk and the air smells like salt, it is easy to see why anyone would want to be here. -- Felicia Paik
Cape Cod Stats
ZIP code: 02655 Osterville
Median HH Income: $46,799
Median Home Value: $226,849
ZIP code: 02647 Hyannis Port
Median HH Income: $39,286
Median Home Value: $163,993
ZIP code: 02635 Cotuit
Median HH Income: $50,040
Median Home Value:$221,198
Statistics provided by Claritas, a data and market research company, based in San Diego, Calif. Data represents information collected from selected high-end ZIP codes in Forbes Preferred Places.