A Learning Lab for Preservation Skills
Founded by heiress, philanthropist, and collector Doris Duke, the Newport Restoration Foundation plays a tangible role in supporting, sustaining, and promoting the craft of preservation through the ongoing care and maintenance of our portfolio of 18th and 19th century properties. By utilizing new technology and skills that address climate change, affordable housing, and other societal challenges, NRF helps support communities local and national.
The City’s Architecture
Newport, Rhode Island is home to one of the largest collections of 18th-century buildings in the United States. In the late 1960s, Newport, was facing great change. Projects designed to revitalize Newport’s economy were also threatening to erase centuries of Newport’s historic architecture, and with the demolition of buildings came the threat of erasure of the histories of generations of Newporters. Following philanthropist Doris Duke’s impulse to “preserve and restore” Newport’s architectural and cultural heritage, NRF promotes economic and community restoration.
Continuing the Legacy
Since 1968, the Newport Restoration Foundation has stewarded more than 100 18th- and early 19th-century buildings in a targeted approach that was foundational for the restoration of two neighborhoods, The Point and Historic Hill. Many of these buildings are now the homes of tenant stewards and maintained by a full-time crew of carpenters and painters. Our collection of preservation properties are a defining feature of the cityscape of Newport and continue to shape how the community lives and works in the city today.
Properties
The Newport Restoration Foundation’s historic structures are a diverse collection of 18th and 19th century architecture and represent a significant share of the existing historic housing stock in Newport. Along with the unique physical features and details of each home, every structure carries a long history of the people who called it home, the builders who changed the structure through time, and the story of its restoration.
Become a Steward
Restored historic properties we care for continue to be residences rented by tenant stewards. By living in a NRF house, tenants are actively engaged as stewards of a historic home and are committed to its long-term sustainability. Rents are based on fair market rental values and homes range from one to six bedrooms in size.
Historic Trades Initiative
NRF is committed to the future of preservation and developing the next generation of preservation workers. Our Historic Trades Initiative provides opportunities for craftspeople and trades workers to gain experience in the unique and specific skills required for preservation and restoration work through courses like the Preservation Trades Specialist Training Program.
Preservation Awards
The Doris Duke Preservation Awards are a collaboration of NRF and the City of Newport. The awards celebrate individuals for preservation, restoration, and rehabilitation projects and educational activities that help protect the historic sites, landscapes, and overall character of Newport County, and seek to highlight innovative approaches to preservation, including new technologies, materials/products, creative adaptive reuse, and excellence in practice, climate change adaptations, and similarly progressive concepts.
The awards are juried by representatives from the Newport Restoration Foundation, the City of Newport, and individuals involved in local preservation practice.
The Crew
NRF promotes the work of Newport craft past and present: we have a full-time preservation crew of highly skilled carpenters, millworkers, and painters who carry out preservation, restoration, and cyclical maintenance projects for our over 70 historic properties.
