Historic New England

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 maintains properties throughout all of the New England states except Vermont.

William Sumner Appleton, Jr. founded SPNEA in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." 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.

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.

Properties

* Connecticut: Roseland Cottage.

* Maine: Castle Tucker, Hamilton House, Sarah Orne Jewett House, Marrett House, Nickels-Sortwell House, and Sayward-Wheeler House.

* Massachusetts: Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House, Boardman House, Browne House, Codman House, Coffin House, Cogswell's Grant, Cooper-Frost-Austin House, Winslow Crocker House, Dole-Little House, Gedney House, Gropius House, Lyman Estate, Merwin House, Harrison Gray Otis House, Pierce House, Josiah Quincy House, Rocky Hill Meeting House, Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Stephen Phillips House and Swett-Ilsley House.

* New Hampshire: Barrett House, Gilman Garrison House, Richard Jackson House, Governor John Langdon House, and Rundlet-May House.

* Rhode Island: Arnold House, Casey Farm, Clemence-Irons House, and Watson Farm.

See also

* The Trustees of Reservations
* National Trust for Historic Preservation
* List of historic houses in Massachusetts

External links

* [http://www.historicnewengland.org/ Official website]