When a major project creeps up around your home, how do you start the planning process? Do you call a contractor? Depend on a handy spouse or family member? Make a list? Prepare a budget? Imagine the planning that goes into caring for a two-acre historic site!

On May 18, a brand-new campus planning committee met to discuss future planning for The House of the Seven Gables. For the past few years, staff and talented contractors have focused on sealing the envelopes of our buildings with new roofs and fresh paint. Storm-battered windows have been painstakingly preserved. A structural restoration of the second floor of the oldest part of the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion was completed.

Now that nearly all the items on the punch list have been ticked off, the focus is changing over to risk management and systems infrastructure to help preserve the buildings and site for the long term. This committee will be crafting an RFP for consultants to help with projects ranging from fire detection and suppression, security, electrical, exterior and interior lighting, and landscape improvements.

Stay tuned for more details in the coming months as we prepare and plan preservation efforts to ensure that The House of the Seven Gables is here for generations to come.