Through thoughtful preservation and a vision for what comes next, John and Piper Carey are helping historic Cape Cod buildings—and the communities around them—find new life.

Some buildings practically beg for a second chance. Others require a little more imagination.

When John and Piper Carey first walked through the former schoolhouse in West Harwich, built in 1871, there was plenty of evidence that time had taken its toll. The enormous timber-frame structure was slowly deteriorating, and the Town of Harwich had already tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer willing to accept an important condition: the building had to stay.

For the Careys, that wasn’t a deterrent. It was the opportunity. “This thing’s so cool,” John remembers thinking. “It’s gigantic. It’s timber frame. It has so much character.”

That enthusiasm for the difficult, overlooked and historically significant has become something of a calling card for Carey Development Group (CDG), the construction and development company the couple has built around a philosophy that runs counter to one of development’s most familiar impulses: tear it down and start again.

John, whose family has ties to the Cape stretching back generations, and Piper, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty, moved to the Cape full time in 2021. Even their own home hinted at the path ahead. John had purchased a small Hyannis property near a marsh intending to renovate and sell it. Instead, he and Piper fell in love with the property—and with the possibilities inherent in making something old work beautifully again.