Chase-Lloyd House at 250: Significance of Function and Integrity of Form

Chase-Lloyd House at 250 is both a study of the history of the Chase-Lloyd House in Annapolis, Maryland, and a demonstration of the role of preservationists in the treatment of historic places. The House has given us, five emerging professionals in the field of historic preservation, an opportunity to ask: what is the role of the preservationist? Are we historians? Architects? Theoreticians? Craftspeople? As individual practitioners, we may identify as one or more of these, or as something else entirely, but this leaves unresolved the matter of what “preservation” means. The question, in its purest distillation, is nothing short of existential: what do we do, and why do we do it? We see our role as historic preservationists as undertaking the work necessary to place human narratives within a physical context in order to justify the protection of places and spaces. We argue that preserving stories, those essential reminders of our shared or personal past, requires preserving as much as possible the settings in which those stories have unfolded.