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Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty revels in a Massachusetts house of singular distinction and location that is now being marketed by regional experts, Robert Paul Properties.

The cover of Designs For Living, a book lavishly illustrating the houses of master architects Robert A M Stern, features a tantalising roundel section of an amazing waterside house. But the real thing is better.

Most houses get something right, be it location, size, scale, design, interior or landscaping. It is rare that a house gets more than a few of these things right. Mishaum Point seems to get everything right.

First comes the location, a point of land at the end of a long bony finger stretching out into Buzzards Bay on coastal Massachusetts below Cape Cod. This is not a body of water that stretches into blue infinity by day and endless inky black by night. Instead, surrounding it is a ribbon of far-off headlands and islands which provides a perfect frame to this seascape.

The house was created just for this situation with clever vision and sound intent. It is quite a large house but it doesn’t feel like it. That’s part of the magic. The scale and use of space are thrilling. The exterior is vernacular Cape Cod with a gambrel or mansard main roof and gables, a fabulous, flared, flattened cupola, and mixed stone and shingle elevations that have windows, windows, windows. With everything to see without and nobody for miles to see within, why not?

The interior design takes into account every direction of the compass ensuring that all rooms, including the bathrooms, have spectacular vistas. I loved the long enfilade which, acting as an axis, spans the house and has water views at each end, and I adored the reading room at the top of the house, a bookish eyrie with panoramic views in which to spend some time with an author or find words of one’s own. Nancy Lancaster the celebrated Virginian interior designer asked of a room, does it read well? All the rooms at Mishaum Point read well.

The gods had decreed, on the day I went, that the weather should be perfect. Under a cloudless sky a gentle breeze flowed through the house taking the edge off the July heat. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of waves on the rocky shore and summer birdsong among the splendid, butterfly-rich wildflower borders.

Wide verandas overlook the bay, as does the infinity pool. I’ll leave it to the beautiful photography and video to illustrate the look further and the website to list the splendid accommodation and features. It is better for me to mention that some houses compete in local and regional markets. This house goes far beyond that – especially as with the correct permissions one may even be able helicopter to and from lower Manhattan as the mood or market takes you. This home is in a national and even global league of its own where location and architecture are both of such an extraordinary standard and relationship to one another that few are equal – never mind better. I have no doubt this is the real point of Mishaum Point.

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Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty takes the opportunity to view a splendid house with comanding coastal views and historic perspective on Cape Cod – now being marketed through the Cape Cod specialists, Robert Paul Properties.

Down at the bottom of the wide waterfront garden of Point of View, 251 Green Dunes Drive, West Hyannisport, Cape Cod a large red tailed hawk – on the ground and only ten feet away from me – hardly troubled to look up from his mousy meal. Out over the water an osprey, oblivious to the boaters and swimmers enjoying the hot summer day, dived into the clear blue waters of Nantucket Sound after a large fish. This was in the first five minutes of being there. Goodness knows what one could see in a day or a week or a lifetime.

The house I was visiting stands on a point of land with a wide beachfront. To the southwest the view is to Squaw Island. It was one of the houses on Squaw Island that John F Kennedy used as a summer White House when, as President, he was mixing business with pleasure.

So, a pretty good location for a home it has to be said: but to match up to a great position you need a great house. And Point of View is certainly that. Designed by architect, Richard Bertman, in the shingle style this 10,000 sq ft home provides spacious family accommodation with grand reception rooms, five large bedroom suites, gourmet kitchen and inside pool. Outside in the generous 10-acre grounds there are a guesthouse and a separate caretaker’s apartment with private entrance. Also a six-car garage with motor court and a delightful mini 18 hole golf course. Water forms the boundary to three sides of the property.

By the time I had looked around the property the red tailed hawk had finished its meal. But the osprey was still on the prowl. The day was unfolding slowly and in its own time. That’s how the days do unfold in this part of the world. There is no rush. This is what a vacation home – and this one in particular – is all about.

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Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty finds it hard to forget a beautiful home overlooking Nantucket Sound in Cape Cod – now being marketed through the Cape specialists, Robert Paul Properties.

Since my visit to Cape Cod recently I seem to have done little else but imagine myself living or vacationing there. I fear I am becoming a Cape Cod bore. But there is nothing boring about Cape Cod. For thousands of Bostonians especially, weekends and vacations are all about getting away from the city and heading to the Cape. It’s hardly surprising. Boston is a great, great city but Cape Cod is just excellent to have a couple of hours’ drive away. It is one of the best playgrounds in all the US.

Cape Cod is a place to get away from it all and a place to gather with friends and family in a variety of lovely communities to suit most tastes and lifestyles. One of my favourites is Cotuit. This charming village on the edge of Cotuit Bay is both understated and stylish.

The houses are like that too. But there is small understated and stylish, and grand understated and stylish. I went to see one of the grand ones. 30 Belair Lane sits securely down a private gated road. All other access seems denied by a moat – or rather Cotuit Bay that guards two sides of the property and is a perfect place to swim and to go boating. The house sits on a little headland called Handy Point. And the point is that it is very handy – handy for the village centre and other great local amenities.

But the house is really about water. After all Cape Cod is all about water. There are great views across the bay to Nantucket Sound from the deep shady veranda, sunny decks and private beach. To one side of the property runs a creek that is a haven for wildlife. The house is well orientated to catch these views and make the most of them. As for the interior, just look at the online photos. It’s fabulous.

So in my mind I am now back in Cape Cod and in this wonderful home. I can’t wait to tell more people about it. There I go, Cape crusading again.

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Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty visits a very elegant and comfortable home in the heart of Cape Cod, now on the market through Robert Paul Properties.

“How should I love thee? Let me count the ways” . . .

I loved Cape Cod. But I didn’t know all the ways until I visited again recently. Until then the Cape had been, for me, a monochrome image of dramatic skies over empty beaches with raised, bleached, rough wooden walkways; beechgrass bending in the Atlantic wind; lighthouses and solitary weatherboard cottages in lonely Hopper-esque coastscapes.

But now I know that Cape Cod is so much more than that. It is small pretty towns all with distinct characters; it is lazy creeks with small boats and busy harbours with big boats. It is in colour with sunny beaches and people enjoying themselves. And overlying everything – for those with their social and historic antennae set in the right direction – there is the resonance of the Kennedy clan at play.

There is definitely a Cape Cod look. This is perhaps best seen in the houses and interiors. For this I had to look no further than 756 Main Street, Cotuit. This manifestly what Cape Cod is all about. Cotuit has understated style. The people here – Harvard professors and the like – live quietly while enjoying the dream of small town America by the water. There’s baseball, beaches and boating, and on the 4th of July the parade passes by with music and fireworks to follow. Perhaps it isn’t so quiet then.

From the house there are views of Cotuit Bay to Osterville’s Oyster Harbours. Inside is a dreamy Cape Cod interior of earthy, beachy colours with blue and whites accents, laid-back comfort and airy space. There’s a gourmet kitchen, multiple decks, stone patios, a deep-screened porch, billiards and wine rooms. Up on the roof is a Widow’s Walk that is ideal for catching the sunsets, and grounds of 1.75 acres just around the corner from water access. It is all so perfectly done one could move in tomorrow – if not before. One can never start a good thing too soon.

And it doesn’t take a Harvard professor to know that this is a very special house in a romantic and prized location.

How should I love thee? One way is to start here.