The Best Landscape Lighting Styles for New England Homes

Colonial, cape, shingle-style, Victorian, New England has some of the most architecturally interesting homes in the country. Here is how to light each one correctly.

Why New England Homes Are Different

A house in Wellesley or Newport is not a stucco box in Scottsdale. New England homes have character, cedar shingles, brick chimneys, stone walls, wide front porches, mature trees on deep lots. Lighting these homes well requires understanding what makes them distinct.

The wrong lighting on a colonial is worse than no lighting at all. Flood lights washing the whole facade make it look like a gas station. The right approach is restrained, precise, and designed to show off what makes the house worth lighting.

Colonial and Federal-Style Homes

These are the most common homes in eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Symmetry is everything. The lighting should mirror the architecture, equal number of fixtures on each side, same angles, same intensity. Uplighting the columns is usually the highest-impact single move on a colonial. A pair of well-aimed brass uplights on the front columns transforms the whole front elevation.

Cape Cod and Shingle-Style Homes

These homes are everywhere on the South Shore and Cape Ann. Cedar shingles respond beautifully to grazing light, a fixture placed close to the wall at a steep angle shows off every texture in the shingle. Wall washing on a shingle-style home at night looks like a photograph.

Victorian and Queen Anne Homes

These are detailed homes. Every bracket, every turned post, every gable ornament is an opportunity. The best approach is to light the most dramatic architectural features and leave the rest in shadow, contrast is what makes the house read at night.

Stone Walls and New England Landscapes

If your property has a stone wall, and most older New England properties do, grazing light is the single best thing you can do. A low-angle fixture aimed along the face of a stone wall shows every rock, every mortar joint, every variation in color. It looks like a painting. This is one of the most requested services we do in Concord, Barrington, and across the region.

Mature Trees

A 60-year-old oak or maple is one of the most valuable things on a New England property. Uplighting a mature tree from two angles, one in front, one behind, creates depth and scale that no other lighting technique can match. The house becomes the background. The tree becomes the focal point.

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