Climate change poses a threat to nearly every aspect of our lives, including the preservation of our cultural sites and resources. Areas of concern at The House of the Seven Gables include but are not limited to monitoring the hydrology of our site to understand how storm water flows and how best to protect our historic resources, making our seawall resilient enough to handle rising sea levels, and investigating how to protect our utilities and critical infrastructure from future water inundation.
Like all curators of historic properties, we consider the span of centuries, rather than years or decades. This consideration makes preservation and sustainability an ideal pairing. At The Gables, we seek to enhance this partnership not only through the improvement of energy efficiency and conservation of historic building materials but also through using the lens that inherently sustainable design can come from the past.
COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
In September of 2022, The House of the Seven Gables was awarded a Coastal Resilience Grant by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM). The two-year grant aims to develop an adaptation plan that lays out short-term site improvements, as well as a series of longer-term actions and decision points.
Year-one work included site data gathering, building and site analysis, adaptation planning, short-term maintenance planning, and both peer-to-peer and public outreach.
Year-two work included continued reporting on site analysis, detailed planning for permitting, construction-ready planning, drawings and documentation for near-term modifications and longer-term adaptation recommendations, peer-to-peer and public outreach including a lesson plan on Historic Preservation, and delivery of the final adaptation plan report.
SEAWALL IMPROVEMENTS
The House of the Seven Gables’ seawall is under greater stress than ever and is now over-washed and undermined with sinkholes. Our most pressing task is repointing the seawall that runs up against Salem Harbor.
We are currently working on filling in all the gaps in the mortar of our stone seawall, which was last repointed almost 30 years ago. This work will protect the seawall from the impact of wave action and reduce soil loss as water moves in and out of the wall assembly.
Date: June 11, 24
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 11, 2024 The House of the Seven Gables to Share Climate Adaptations Research Salem, MA (June 11, 2024) – On Thursday, June 13, the...
Date: March 1, 24
After the extreme dry conditions of summer 2022, one would think that this past summer’s heavy rain would be most welcome. But with over 20 inches of rain in a...
Date: September 1, 23
After the conclusion of year one of our Coastal Zone Management research project, we’ve been finding ways that climate resiliency will impact what we do here at The Gables. While...
Date: June 1, 23
On April 26, The House of the Seven Gables held a daylong series of meetings, also known as a charette, to mark eight months of collecting data and facts about...
