Nantucket Preservation Trust

CONTACT:

Two Union St., 2nd floor
Nantucket, MA 02554
508-228-1387
nantucketpreservation.org

Patricia Butler, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

It is hard not to care about historic preservation on Nantucket, but it takes work, grounded in generosity, to do it. In 1955 the Town of Nantucket and the Village of Siasconset were officially designated Historic Districts by the Massachusetts Legislature. In 1970 Nantucket Town Meeting expanded the District review jurisdiction to include the entire island—which features more than 2,400 documented historic structures. In 1997 a new, strong and sophisticated player appeared: the Nantucket Preservation Trust, specializing in promoting and arranging permanent, binding covenants between property owners and the public, to preserve any part(s) or all of the historic features of their properties. With this instrument, the outside, the inside, the land, or any designated part(s) thereof, can be preserved from “modernization” by charitable gift. One of NPT’s first initiatives was to convene eleven organizations concerned about historic preservation, to form the Nantucket Preservation Alliance — another strategic step forward. But if the opportunities are great, so are the impediments. In 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation added Nantucket to its List of the Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places in the entire U.S. So NPT has a big job—researching, marking, teaching, protecting, and preserving, as many and as much of these historic structures as possible. You don’t have to live on Nantucket to appreciate that they are working for you, too.

(2004: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)