Preservation Projects

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Historic House Museum has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1973 and was included in the State Register of Historic Places following that. Since 2023, the Museum anchors the new “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Historic District. Funded through a National Park Service Underrepresented Communities Grant awarded by the National Park Service to the Massachusetts Historical Commission in 2020, the new historic district now details the site’s significant associations with agricultural history, women’s history, Black and African American history, Indigenous history, architecture, and “pastkeeping” in the Connecticut River Valley. Preserving these historic structures and grounds has always been an important part of our Foundation’s mission. 

In 2013 the museum received a grant to restore the roof over the veranda, western ells, corn barn, and gambrel with cedar shingles, repair the Veranda sills and decking, repair window sashes and a portico column, and paint and hang the restored Carriage House shutters. This matching grant came from the Massachusetts Preservation Projects Fund through the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Secretary of the Commonwealth, William Francis Galvin, Chairman. Funding was also provided by the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, a program of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, administered through a collaborative arrangement between MassDevelopment and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. 

In 2014 and 2020 the museum received additional matching grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, a program of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, administered through a collaborative arrangement between MassDevelopment and the Massachusetts Cultural Council to undertake several preservation projects to the structures and landscape.

In 2021 the 1772 Foundation and Preservation Massachusetts awarded Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, Inc. a $10,000 matching grant for varied preservation projects including exterior painting and gutter replacement among others. In 2022 a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund enabled a conditions assessment grant for Phelps Farm.

The Cultural Landscape of Hadley, Massachusetts was placed on the 2010 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund for its history of early colonists and their farming practices.