Historic New England, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on New England and is the oldest and largest regional preservation organization in the United States. Historic New England owns and operates historic site museums and study properties throughout all of the New England states except Vermont, and serves more than 150,000 visitors and program participants each year. Approximately 36,000 visitors participate in school and youth programs focused on New England heritage.
Historic New England is a museum of cultural history which collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of New England life and appreciation for its preservation.
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William Sumner Appleton, Jr. founded the Society for the Preservation of new England Antiquities in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." Fearing that "our New England antiquities are fast disappearing because no society has made their preservation its exclusive object," Sumner Appleton and a small group of like-minded individuals founded SPNEA in 1910. By 1920, Director of Museums Harry Vinton Long wrote in his report that the museum’s purpose was "to preserve and illustrate the life of New Englanders..." The history of New Englanders encompasses the stories of family life, immigration, school girls' routines, servants' duties, the enslaved Africans, and the products of masons, carpenters, and furniture makers.
Accession records for 1910 list 19 items. Appleton considered everything from the mundane to the singular worth preserving, and so Historic New England's collection today ranges from everyday cakes of soap to extraordinary specimens of fine furniture. As a comprehensive heritage organization, Historic New England today cares for historic properties and landscapes; holds preservation easements and undertakes preservation advocacy work to protect historic properties; develops, maintains and interprets artifact collections; operates a library and archive; researches and publishes books and Historic New England magazine; and provides educational programs for children and adults. The organization's mission statement outlines its goals: "We serve the public by preserving and presenting New England heritage." The organization focuses on New England domestic architecture, collections and stories.
Founder William Sumner Appleton was succeeded as Director by Bertram K. Little, Abbott Lowell Cummings and Nancy R. Coolidge before the title of the chief executive officer was changed to President, with Jane C. Nylander and now Carl R. Nold serving in that capacity.
The organization formerly included one of America's most prominent architectural conservation centers (the SPNEA Conservation Center), which pioneered a number of conservation techniques under research leader Morgan W. Phillips and his apprentices. Phillips is credited with coining the term architectural conservation.
Historic New England currently owns and operates 36 house museums and landscapes across New England, representing nearly 400 years of architecture, as well as a wide-ranging collection of more than 100,000 objects of historical and aesthetic significance (the largest assemblage of New England art and artifacts in the country). It also archives more than 1,000,000 items documenting New England architectural and cultural history, including photographs, prints and engravings, more than 20,000 architectural drawings and specifications, books, manuscripts, and ephemera. The Collections Access Project, which provides Internet-based access to catalog data about many of the collections, went online during the organization's centennial in 2010. A Collections and Conservation Center is located in a northern Massachusetts mill town, in a former shoe factory building. While not open to the public, this facility provides for the proper care of collections and access to collections and collections information for curators, students and scholars. Other museums also rent space for collections storage in this facility.
A traveling exhibition program presents collections and research to the general public, in cooperation with other museums throughout the region. New exhibitions for 2009 will include America's Kitchens, opening at New Hampshire Historical Society ([1]) in June; Drawing Toward Home, and architectural drawing exhibition that opens at Boston University Art Gallery in November 2009 and travels to the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. during 2010; and a centennial exhibition entitled The Preservation Movement Then and Now which will appear in all six New England states beginning in late 2009 and continuing into 2011.
On line exhibitions include Jewelry at Historic New England, found at [2], The Preservation Movement Then and Now, at [3], From Dairy to Doorstep: Milk Delivery in New England, 1860-1960 at [4], and New England Photographs of Verner Reed, at [5].
Through its Stewardship Program, established in the early 1980s, Historic New England holds preservation restrictions on 81 privately owned New England properties, and works with the owners to ensure preservation of the character-defining historic features. The program provides comprehensive protection of exterior, interior and landscape features and is considered a national model for the protection of buildings that remain in active use and in private ownership. Approximately 1/3 of the properties in the program were previously owned by Historic New England, and were returned to private ownership with preservation restrictions that continue in perpetuity. The balance of the properties were enrolled by current or former owners, who donated the deed restrictions to the organization along with endowment fund contributions. Endowment funds provide for the monitoring and enforcement of the easements, carried out by a full time staff dedicated to that purpose.
A Historic Homeowner program, available to all for an annual membership fee, provides information to those who own historic houses of any age, up to and including mid-20th century homes. The annual membership includes two consultations with staff experts, one on historic paint colors and a second on a topic chosen by the member, ranging from window repair to roofing materials, hardware source or historic wallpaper selections, or other topics needed for the care of historic homes. Other specialized membership programs focus on Gardens and Landscapes, and on young adults through the Young Friends program, and an upper-level membership society called the Appleton Circle provides benefactor support for organizational programs.
Historic New England is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization which operates under the direction of a 23-member board of trustees.
The Lyman Estate in Waltham, Mass., and the Codman House Carriage House in Lincoln, Mass., provide unique historic settings for private functions ranging from weddings to corporate events and training programs. The grounds of the historic Governor John Langdon House in Portsmouth, N.H. are also available for weddings and private events.
The Lyman Estate, also known as The Vale, was built in 1793 by wealthy shipping magnate Theodore Lyman. Originally used as a summer home, the Federal-style mansion was designed by renowned Salem architect Samuel McIntire. The Estate remained in the Lyman family until 1952, when the five Lyman heirs donated it to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now known as Historic New England. The property is now a National Historic Landmark and is available for rental for weddings and private parties.
The Codman House grounds are a prospect of farm and pleasure grounds, a gentleman's country seat that was a powerful force in the lives of five generations of the Codman family. In the 1790s, John Codman carried out extensive improvements to the original Georgian house and surrounding grounds. Each generation of Codmans to live here left their mark, and the estate that was originally a country retreat gradually came to symbolize the family's distinguished past. The grounds feature a hidden Italianate garden, c. 1900, with perennial beds, statuary, and a reflecting pool filled with waterlilies, as well as an English cottage garden, c. 1930. The Codman estate Carriage House is available as a site for weddings and other private events, and wedding ceremonies may take place in the beautiful Italian Garden.
The grounds of the Governor John Langdon House, located in the center of Portsmouth, N.H., with easy access from Boston, may be rented for weddings and other occasions. John Langdon rose from modest origins to become a merchant, shipbuilder, Revolutionary leader, signer of the United States Constitution, and three-term governor of New Hampshire. The house he built for his family expresses his status as Portsmouth's leading citizen and was praised by George Washington, who visited there in 1789. Its reception rooms -- of a grand scale suited to ceremonial occasions -- are ornamented by elaborate wood carving in the rococo style. After Langdon's death in 1819, the house was occupied by other leading families. At the end of the 19th century, Langdon descendants purchased the house and restored it to its 18th-century glory, adding on a substantial wing designed by McKim, Mead, and White to house modern conveniences. The handsome garden, dating from the same era, features restored perennial beds, a rose and grape arbor, and a pavilion.