Our Mission
The Nantucket Preservation Trust serves as an advocate for Nantucket Island’s historic architectural exteriors and interiors, its gardens and streetscapes. The Nantucket Preservation Trust provides the Island community with technical preservation assistance and offers a broad range of year-round programs for residents and visitors of all ages. Each year the NPT conducts special educational tours of historic properties, seasonal architecture walks, and slide lectures. The NPT also prepares house histories and completes research on house markers to encourage the continued appreciation and preservation of our island’s architectural resources. The NPT also holds preservation easements on historic structures.

On an island that already has a Historic District Commission, what do we add?
The NPT is an independent, membership-based organization concerned about the Island’s historic architecture. We are not a regulatory body—that function is the role of the Historic District Commission. We do provide programs that explore the architecture and history of our buildings, and increase appreciation of the importance and fragility of these resources. Of special concern are Nantucket’s historic interiors that are not protected by the local government and are threatened by insensitive “gut rehabs”.

The NPT is unique among island organizations in that its focus is on architectural heritage. Other island non-profit organizations focus on the island’s history, its flora and fauna and its open spaces, but there is no other organization whose primary concern is preservation of Nantucket’s unique historic resources.

Through lectures, tours and publications, NPT presents the unique national significance of our historic structures and their continued importance in the economic and cultural lives of community. Paradoxically for a place so steeped in history, no other organization on island has such a charge, and at present no other charge is so important.

Although preserving the texture and appearance of our historic buildings is central to Nantucket’s economic and social appeal, the affluence of the past decade has posed new threats to the very basis of that appeal. The issue of “gut rehab” threatens historic homes. Each year scores of historic buildings are altered without considering the irreplaceable architectural qualities that led to the Nantucket’s designation as a National Historic Landmark.