Cape Cod .... duplexes?

[OldEastRR]

I went prowling around small New England towns on Google maps street views, to find examples of regular residential neighborhoods to model. I found a side street with 4 or 5 Cape Cod style houses in a row (so I can duplicate that realistically), looking just like the Walthers version. Except -- there were double front doors, and two mailboxes on some, --- these teeny little homes were duplexes? With 2 families living in them? Or am I wrong?

Added:
Link to Walthers model: https://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3839
Link to Google map (from post below): https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=38243.msg461940#msg461940

-gfh

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Address?

[peteski]

There are certain streets in Billerica, MA with rows of duplexes.  They look to be built in the '70s.
If you do street view (on one side of the street only), you'll see several duplexes.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/162+Baldwin+Rd,+Billerica,+MA+01821/@42.5658635,-71.2256779,18z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e3a059f8605581:0x1d0fe410e0f72121?hl=en

This is one of those duplexes on the above street
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BTW, why is this posted in Product Discussion section?? 

EDIT: corrected Google Maps URL

[OldEastRR]

BTW, why is this posted in Product Discussion section?? 

I'm looking into doing variations or additions to the Walthers Cape Cod houses, so I figured this was where it should go.

The houses I saw were
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5315594,-72.0578361,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1svEEDdvzIrNABy95YJnsNrg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en.
You can swing left or right or go down  the block and see a whole row of them: the same size as the teeny ones of the Walthers kits. I would certainly model some but wondered if they really were duplexes that small.
This picture also shows how to add details and extras (bay window, porches, etc) to individualize each.

[nickelplate759]

Yep, those are duplexes.  One address and mailbox per door.
Lived in New England for years and never noticed Cape Cod duplexes, much less a row of them.
That said, these are clearly newer houses built in the style of a Cape Cod. 

George

[peteski]

Yep, those are duplexes.  One address and mailbox per door.
Lived in New England for years and never noticed Cape Cod duplexes, much less a row of them.
That said, these are clearly newer houses built in the style of a Cape Cod. 

George

Yup, two tiny garages too.  I drive by these quite often. I know of at least 2 streets (not close to each other) in the town where there are several of these in a row. Clearly it looks like some developer bought bunch of lots and then build them at the same time.

Similar thing is going on now: many small houses are getting bough out in my neighborhood and a developer is tearing them down, replacing them with ugly basement-less split-level houses.  But since the small houses are not all adjacent, the same style split-level house is popping up randomly in various places.

[eric220]

Every time I see this thread, I see "duplex" and picture:

[basementcalling]

Why on earth did Walthers offer a house only used in such a small area of one state with only 1 railroad anywhere nearby?  The duplex thing is cool, but not sure their kit has the size to look like those pics you found.

[Chris333]

Those cape cod houses are everywhere!

[OldEastRR]

As far as I can tell by measuring off the pictures here, Walthers got the width of the buildings pretty good. The model is 30 foot wide, the real house 36. Can't tell about the depth but Walthers has much shorter walls. Looks like there should be 1-1.5 feet of wall below the door frame (not counting the foundations) and at least four feet above the door. Maybe the expanded dimensions only are for duplexes, but I'm thinking there has to be at least some vertical wall in the attic area in a single-- it's not a big open triangle space. However. with the extra two walls in each kit it should be easy to raise the height of the house, maybe even widen it to make a duplex.
If any of you guys can actually measure the dimensions of a house like this that'd be great. None of them exist around here.

[peteski]

If you go to Google Street View at the link I provided earluer, you can travel the area until you are face on to one of those houses.  Then do a screen capture (which is how I got that earlier photo).  Then use a known dimension of one of the items in the house (like the front door) to figure out the scale. From that you can estimate the other dimensions.

I'm also not sure that these duplexes were all that popular.  Those 2 streets in Billerica, MA are the only places I have ever seen them in New England.

[John]

These types of buildings are also common on military base family housing ..  there is also an area not too far from where I live here in Maryland ..

https://goo.gl/maps/wfZLG1QTZQr

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The Walther house is single family. I have seen duplex split level before, but not a mini cape. Looks like a common living room eat in kitchen downstairs and a bath and bedroom in the second floor. Weird.

[peteski]

Using duplexes like these for military base housing makes perfect sense.

Here is an example of what happens when the residents of one of those duplexes come into money.  Instead of moving to some nicer single-family house, they make it into a mega-duplex McMansion!  It makes me smile every time I drive by it.  It is like WTF?    Did they really like the location that much?  A trailer park is just down the street from them.  Notice a standard unmodified duplex to the left.



Here is a photo of a "plain" duplex on that street.  But as you can see, each owned dis something different to their half.



These images were captured from Bing maps street view (Google Maps street view was 10 years old, with low resolution images - Bing had newer and better images).  If you want to take a virtual walk through the neighborhood, just go to Google or Bing street view and type in the address in the 1st photo.  Or for even more duplexes visit 145 Baldwin Rd. Billerica, MA. There are bunch of duplexes on one side of the road.  Some original, some with additions.

EDIT:  added missing pictures and also added some info.

[OldEastRR]

I'm nearing completion on this project and going back to here for reference I found some of Peteski's pix are apparently still being held for ransom on PhotoPhucket. If he reads this maybe he can transfer them to TRW so I can see them.
Tho a duplex Cape Cod may be a rare and oddball thing I saw that as a way to have a unique structure not seen as a kit on countless other layouts. My version is even weirder than the ones in the photo but hey, this is New England. Will post some pix soon.
But the cycle must be returning: in my neighborhood they are building modern versions of this tiny living space, except as multiple units. I'm thinking they are the same idea and implementation as brick row houses on the East Coast, except made of wood and glitzier. Each unit is two stories but the total floor space must only the size of regular 2-bdrm apt. A style of structure I've never seen built new before.