Five Preservation Trends That We're Thankful For
A recent “road trip” by Preservation Alliance board members, staff and friends showcased positive preservation trends that we are grateful for as well as challenges ahead.
Preservation Alliance board members, spouses, staff, and Lord’s Hill tourguide, Jason Earle, pose at the Lord’s Hill Meetinghouse in Effingham.
This touring tradition began over ten years ago to engage with local advocates and explore New Hampshire’s beautiful built and natural landscapes.
In years past, we have visited Claremont, Lancaster, Wolfeboro, Warner, Peterborough, Newmarket, Berlin, and many places in between. This year, we explored the Ossipee River Valley, including the towns of Ossipee, Effingham, Freedom, Eaton, and Tamworth.
Each year exposes our group to new sites and new faces, and we remain thankful for the following:
Community members are doing incredible preservation work.
We met up with people behind the Effingham Preservation Society, Lord’s Hill Meetinghouse, Effingham Historical Society, Effingham Town Hall Restoration Committee, Freedom Village Store, South Eaton Meetinghouse, Eaton’s Little White Church, Eaton Village Preservation Society, Barnstormers Theater, Remick Museum, Tamworth Foundation, The Other Store, Tamworth History Center, and Friends of the Tamworth Town House.
All of them are responsible for saving special places in their communities. The sheer amount of volunteer hours, dollars raised, and community good represented in the above list is immeasurable. The groups we met are tackling issues ranging from steeples to storm windows, operating general stores, providing entertainment and education for residents, securing rural health services, conserving land, and providing mercantile space for local farmers and artists.
They’re navigating LCHIP applications, pushing for town warrant articles, baking cookies, and learning about the challenges of in-town septic system design. Preservation projects don’t happen without champions behind them - and we met a lot of champions on this road trip.
Karen Payne of the Effingham Preservation Society, discusses their award-winning preservation project - the Weare Drake Store Building.
Small towns do outsize amounts of preservation work.
Several of our board members from larger, and maybe wealthier, communities continue to notice that smaller, and maybe poorer towns, seem to get more preservation projects done.
Chalk it up to small town social networks, greater percentages of residents in the trades, or perception (does one project in a small town seem like more than three projects in a city?). We’re proud of all the preservation work in the state, but certainly find ourselves impressed with the work that happens in communities under 2,500 people.
New Hampshire has incredible craftspeople and preservation trades businesses.
Learning about Beech River Mill’s history before checking out the work inside.
Every year on our tour, we make a concerted effort to visit workshops or active job sites. This year we visited Beech River Mill, in Ossipee. Since 1851, the mill has produced shutters and doors of the highest quality and the men (in this case) who operate the century-old equipment have a profound respect for their craft. Come to our March 21-22, 2020 Old House and Barn Expo and see our Directory to connect with preservation tradespeople and services.
Behind the scenes at the Tamworth Distillery.
We also took time on Saturday to do some touring at the Tamworth Distillery, a craft distillery that uses local products to infuse and inspire their spirits. The same level of detail seen in shutter construction could be seen in the production of these gins, vodkas, and ryes.
Several in the group trekked up to Pedlar’s End, a cape owned by members of the Preservation Alliance, Nancy and Mark Watson. Here, miles from electric lines or paved roads, Scott Campbell of Maine Mountain Post & Beam raised a salvaged barn frame on the site of the original early 19th century barn lost in the early 1900s.
We’re blessed with smart, dedicated preservation leaders.
Our board includes men and women who have experience in the trades, marketing, accounting, design, legal matters, engineering, and real estate. Most live in old houses and many have been involved with their local preservation projects.
When we visit with folks struggling with their town’s selectboard, or their building’s drainage, or exhausted membership, our board knows the feeling because they’ve all been there before. This level of understanding ensures that the services the Preservation Alliance offers are tailored to the communities that need the help.
The Preservation Alliance is making a difference!
We’re proud to offer field services, funds for planning and bricks and mortar grants, and a network of talented tradespeople to project proponents and homeowners across New Hampshire. It was exciting to see evidence of our Seven to Save designation providing new opportunities, our planning grants offering road maps to success, and our work over time to secure and promote tools like LCHIP and tax incentives leading to catalytic community development benefits. (Many thanks to Steve Booth for these photos!)
