{"nrhp_refnum":"10000508","name":"Atwood-Higgins Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Bound Brook Island Rd","address_restricted":false,"city":"Wellfleet","county":"Barnstable County","state":"MA","lat":41.954007500000046,"lon":-70.0588358937402,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2010-07-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Historic - Non-Aboriginal","Exploration/Settlement"],"significance_levels":[],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A roughly 24-acre homestead district on Bound Brook Island Road in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, within Cape Cod National Seashore. It centers on a Cape Cod Cottage built around 1730 and includes outbuildings and landscape features added by George K. Higgins in the early twentieth century.","why_significant":"The house was first listed in 1976 as an early example of a Cape Cod Cottage on Lower Cape Cod. This amendment corrects the house's construction date and expands the listing into a district. It also recognizes Higgins's early-twentieth-century transformation of the homestead into an idealized Colonial farmstead and private recreational retreat.","narrative":"Set in one of the few clearings on remote Bound Brook Island in Wellfleet, this 24-acre district preserves a homestead begun around 1730. Its main building is a one-and-one-half-story, post-and-beam Cape Cod Cottage that grew from a half-cape into a full cape by 1805, with a west ell added by 1820 and a small addition by 1850. North of the house stand a barn, guest house, replica country store, woodshed, garage, summer house, wellhouse and three privies, along with the grounds and an archaeological site. In the early twentieth century, George K. Higgins of Brookline used the property as a summer estate. He restored the house to his idea of its historic appearance, built outbuildings around a central barnyard, installed water and plumbing systems, and laid out gardens, fences and drives. The district was listed in 1976 for the house alone; the expanded listing recognizes the whole estate, including Higgins's changes. It contains 13 contributing resources and no noncontributing ones.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Constructed by the Higgins family (house, c. 1730); outbuildings and landscape improvements by George K. Higgins","architectural_style":"Colonial: Georgian; Late 19th and Early 20th Century Revivals: Colonial Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Now part of Cape Cod National Seashore; current uses include museum and outdoor recreation. Most of Higgins's collected antiques and manuscripts have been removed and are in NPS storage.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:10:52.017871-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/64/7939/63793964/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/10000508.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63793964","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/barnstable-county/atwood-higgins-historic-district-10000508/"}