Each year, the University of Florida Historic Preservation Program selects an individual or group to receive the Beinecke-Reeves Award for Historic Preservation. The award recognizes efforts to preserve significant historic places and heritage throughout Florida and across the country.
The award is named in honor of Walter Beinecke, Jr. whose efforts helped preserve Nantucket and establish it as a national model for economic development through preservation and F. Blair Reeves who worked with other professors to initiate historic preservation courses at the University of Florida. In 1972, Beinecke and Reeves launched the Preservation Institute Nantucket (PIN) with the mission of training future generations of historic preservation specialists while documenting and preserving the historic resources of Nantucket. PIN is now the oldest, continually operating field school for historic preservation in the United States. Over the past 40 some years, the program has collaborated with local partners to help address needs impacting the island’s heritage.
The 2014 recipient of the Beinecke-Reeves Award for Historic Preservation is the Nantucket Preservation Trust. The Nantucket Preservation Trust (NPT) is a nonprofit, membership-based organization formed in 1997 with a focus on the preservation of Nantucket’s historic architecture. NPT provides programs that explore the architecture and history of the island’s buildings, and strives to increase awareness of the importance and fragility of these resources. Of special concern are Nantucket’s historic interiors that are not protected by local government regulations and are often threatened by insensitive “gut rehabs.” NPT has a series of programs that educate property owners and others about the island’s historic buildings, and has developed preservation tools to help protect them. Programs include: house histories, architectural studies and research on island neighborhoods, house markers, preservation easements, architectural walking tours or events to celebrate the island’s architectural heritage, and demonstration programs and scholarships to promote traditional building methods.
NPT was chosen for the organizations efforts to advocate and conserve the distinct heritage of Nantucket. In particular, University of Florida would like to acknowledge the organization’s role in expanding the period of significance for the island’s National Historic Landmark District and the group’s activities to address the loss of historic interiors on Nantucket.
As part of the award, University of Florida also recognizes NPT for the organization’s partnership in the Envision Nantucket initiative that employs 3D laser scanning and other imaging technologies to advance the documentation and conservation of Nantucket’s historic urban environment and built heritage. This initiative is helping establish Nantucket as a center for new and emerging technologies for historic preservation and is creating a national model.
The award will be presented at the University of Florida and Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s cocktail reception to be held during the 2014 National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Conference the week of Nov. 10, 2014 in Savannah, Georgia.