Future of Historic House Museums

As a follow up to my January 5th post Historic Preservation and Heritage Tourism News Stories, which included a link to an article about the financial difficulties of maintaining historic house museums in the face of declining interest and Colonial Williamsburg's related intent to sell Carter's Grove, readers may be interested in Bonnie Hurd Smith's recent post on the ENHA [Essex National Heritage Area] First Period Architecture blog.

In Future of Historic House Museums, she describes and provides detailed notes from a lecture presented by Carl Nold, president and CEO of Historic New England, Inc., in Salem, Massachusetts on March 1st. After indicating that Mr. Nold spoke to a "packed" house on a cold Tuesday night, she relates Mr. Nold's key points: why do we care about historic houses; what they can be; the current situation; some solutions; community roles, ways to manage, ways to appeal, etc.; key points, worth repeating; what can members do NOW to support historic house museums; and some follow up points.

In the introduction to her notes, Smith expresses the hope that Mr. Nold's comments will be published by Historic New England, but until then, I would encourage anyone interested in this subject to review her notes; to paraphrase or further describe them here would mean presenting this information to readers third hand.

Hurd Smith is former executive director, and now consultant to, the Ipswich Historical Society and principal of Hurd Smith Communications. The ENHA First Period Architecture blog was established in October, 2006.