We are excited to announce that Nantucket Preservation Trust has been awarded a historic properties redevelopment planning grant from the 1772 Foundation to conduct a revolving fund feasibility study.
With funding from this grant, NPT will hire leading historic preservation consultant Mary Ruffin Hanbury of Hanbury Preservation Consulting to lead the feasibility study. The study will explore possibilities for NPT to create a revolving fund to purchase distressed historic properties, restore them, and place preservation easements on the properties, with the goal of then using these restored historical properties as affordable workforce housing for Nantucket’s year round community.
The creation of a House Rescue program has long been a goal of NPT, and we are excited to be working with Mary Ruffin Hanbury, who is an expert in historic preservation revolving funds and has worked with dozens of other preservation organizations across the country in realizing similar projects.
The 1772 Foundation, based in Pomfret, Connecticut, plays a leading role in promoting historic properties redevelopment programs, also known as revolving funds. The grant award received by NPT was part of over $1.5 million in grant funding awarded by the 1772 Foundation for the first quarter of 2021, its largest single round of grant funding in the foundation’s thirty-five-year history.
Hanbury Preservation Consulting was founded in 2008 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The firm specializes in historic preservation planning, heritage tourism planning, and strategic planning for preservation organizations. Principal Mary Ruffin Hanbury has led revolving fund feasibility studies for numerous other historic preservation organizations, including Preservation Texas, the Landmark Society of Western New York, the Montana Preservation Alliance, the Madison-Morgan Conservancy, Historic Columbia, and Historic Fort Worth.