“Cape Cod Modern: Midcentury Architecture and Community on the Outer Cape,” by Peter McMahon and Christine Cipriani (Metropolis Books, $33), reveals one of the East Coast’s best-kept architectural secrets: an enclave of disarmingly unpretentious houses, many inspired by chicken coops and oyster houses. Often made with scavenged wood mixed with raw lumber straight from the yard, the buildings were designed by Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Serge Chermayeff, Maurice Smith and serious amateurs. In this rich cultural setting, left-leaning figures including Mary McCarthy, Edmund Wilson, Dwight Macdonald and Noam Chomsky dined on plywood tables, bathed nude in brisk waters on principle and exercised elastic morals among the unpainted two-by-fours. It was a summer camp for consenting, distinctly un-Puritanical intellectuals. And the party needn’t be over. Many of the houses are in the Cape Cod National Seashore conservation park, with some recently restored for summer rental and for artists in the off-season.

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