2024 If This House Could Talk book cover

Once a year during Yankee Homecoming celebrations, Greater Newburyport residents display homemade signs about their home - its history, the occupants, or favorite stories. The signs and homes are captured photographically in this full color book. This is a great way to learn more about the history and architecture of the town.

The 2024 edition of “If This House Could Talk” is hot off the press, just in time for Christmas and Hanukkah gift-giving! This beautiful book, in hardcover and softcover, captures the history, occupants, and architecture of many of Newburyport's beautiful homes. During the yearly Yankee Homecoming celebration residents create and display homemade signs about their homes and some of their favorite stories associated with it. The book is $30.00 an you can find it at Jabberwocky Bookshop, on Amazon, or email to buy directly from the Newburyport Preservation Trust where all proceeds go toward local historic preservation efforts.

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A Measure of Change: video

About the Newburyport Preservation Trust

The Newburyport Preservation Trust (NPT) is a non-profit membership organization that brings together people from Newburyport and beyond who value the preservation of the city’s period architecture, neighborhood ambience, heritage landscapes, and authentic historic character.

NPT educates, informs, and advocates through its programs, projects, publications, and presence. When you join NPT, you’ll be among advocates for Newburyport’s unique sense of place, its economic vitality, and environmental sustainability. “The greenest building is one that is already built.” — Carl Elefante, AIA.

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Newburyport Architecture & History

Through a combination of circumstance and vision, Newburyport has come to be known for its rich stock of early American domestic architecture in First Period, Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival styles. Also found in Newburyport’s National Register Historic District are 19th- and early 20th-century styles, from 1850s mill-worker homes, to ornate 1880s Victorians, to 1920s four-squares.

How did Newburyport get this way? On the History and Architecture page you’ll learn how a handful of 1960-70s visionaries diverted the wrecking ball in favor of preservation, sparking a renaissance that lifted the city out of decades of economic stagnation. You’ll also find a guide to architectural styles, photo galleries in PDF format, links to historic maps, a local history bibliography with links to full texts, and the must-see video documentary about Newburyport’s restoration, A Measure of Change (1975).

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Preservation Advocacy

A major component of NPT’s mission is preservation advocacy. As champions of the the economic, aesthetic, cultural, and environmental benefits of preservation, NPT consults with homeowners and developers, and participates in preservation-related hearings before city boards. The aim is to slow down the rate at which the city’s remaining authenticity is whittled away in a “death by a thousand dumpsters.”

On the Preservation Advocacy page you’ll also learn about 21st-century preservation history in Newburyport, and how the city’s pro-preservation zoning laws were unanimously adopted in 2014. For “calls to action” about immediate preservation issues, visiting the Newburyport Preservation Trust at Facebook: www.facebook.com/newburyportpreservationtrust.

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Historic House Plaque Program

NPT’s Historic House Plaque Program provides owners of historic homes in Newburyport with the opportunity to showcase their dedicated stewardship with a plaque validated by the Newburyport Preservation Trust that indicates the original owner, their occupation, and date. Central to the program, and of particular historical value, is the verification of dates, names, and facts by experienced researchers. See complete information at the Historic House Plaque Program page, including photos of selected homes in the program, a map of NPT plaques in place, and an application form for your own NPT Historic House Plaque.

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