Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions we receive from Oregonians.
Please scan the list before submitting a question to our inquiry form! Thank you!
To begin your project, Restore Oregon always recommends clicking here to download our Preservation Toolkit. Developed by technical experts on staff, the toolkit provides a high-level guide to the process and decisions one needs to make when approaching the restoration and reuse of any historic building. It will answer many of the questions that arise as you embark on this project.
Through the Oregon Parks and Recreation: Technical Resources site on Oregon.gov, you can find helpful information called “Heritage Bulletins.” Heritage Bulletins provide Oregon-specific technical knowledge and tips on topics of interest to organizations and individuals involved in heritage projects. Browse categorized Heritage Bulletins by clicking here.
The National Park Service offers technical guides detailing best practices for hands-on historic preservation projects called Preservation Briefs categorized by subject matter.
Restore Oregon offers information about specialized services for your preservation project to help you restore, reuse, and pass forward your most loved places. We know that preservation projects often require specialized services from financing all the way to finishes. When you want to do right by your older home, Restore Oregon’s Business Member Directory connects preservation service providers with customers that are looking to properly care for their historic building.
Oregon's State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) offers a variety of grant programs for heritage projects, from historic building preservation to oral history projects and more. Check out the details for each program by clicking here to assist with heritage-related projects.
The Kinsman Foundation also has a historic preservation grant program available, and it is especially helpful in funding bricks and mortar projects.
Funding from the National Trust Grant Program is awarded to nonprofit organizations and public agencies. Most of our funding is awarded for planning and education projects through our National Trust Preservation Funds grant program.
Are you looking for federal grants to subsidize your rural project? Read the January 7, 2022 report, Pathways to Securing Rural Federal Funding, published by The Ford Family Foundation and Sequoia Consulting.
The National Trust Insurance Services is a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. You will find information about coverage, resources, and applications for different preservation needs there.
Under current Oregon law, the only way an owner of a historic property can ensure their property's preservation and protection in perpetuity is by donating a historic conservation easement (sometimes known as a preservation easement). A conservation easement is a legally binding agreement to protect a historic property from activities that may harm the property's integrity, including neglect, demolition, and insensitive alterations. Learn more about Restore Oregon’s Conservation Easement Program.
A requirement of an easement property owner is the proper stewardship and maintenance of the historic resource. A property owner must also provide Restore Oregon
access to the property during either annual or biannual monitoring to ensure the easement requirements are upheld and proper building maintenance is occurring. Read more about the requirements by clicking here.
Listing is an honorific designation that helps promote the value of heritage in your community. In some instances, designation can qualify a property for tax incentives, grant eligibility, building code leniency, and consideration in planning for federal projects. We recommend visiting Oregon.gov’s National Register of Historic Places informational page.
Tax incentive programs encourage the appropriate rehabilitation and maintenance of historic properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Federal Tax Credit, implemented in 1976, is an income tax credit offered as an incentive for rehabilitating income-producing historic buildings. This tax credit program is administered in Oregon by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in conjunction with the National Park Service (NPS) in Washington, D.C., which makes the final decisions on project eligibility, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who handles the actual tax credit component. We recommend visiting the tax incentive informational page on Oregon.gov for more information.
Unfortunately, Oregon’s only state tax incentive–the Special Assessment of Historic Properties program–expired in 2024. Restore Oregon is working with our partners to advocate for new and improved State-level preservation and reuse incentive programs. Sign up for our monthly e-newsletter to stay up to date.
Demolitions are a complicated issue in Oregon. If a property is privately owned–even if it is historically designated–Oregon has no public process to stop alterations, closure, or demolition. This is something Restore Oregon has advocated to change at local and state levels over the years–a public process for historic designation and for the potential loss of a historic community resource–regardless of whether it's privately or publicly owned. This is an extremely sensitive and difficult issue to take on as it treads on property rights and land use decisions. Aside from a wave of grassroots public pressure or the purchase of the property by a wealthy Samaritan, there's nothing we or any other entity can do to prevent the loss of historic places.
If you're aware of a local group that wants to advocate collectively (check with local museums, friends groups, and preservation organizations) to see if this issue is something they've worked with anyone on), or if you have contact with the owners, we would be happy to share options for historic designation and the use of federal tax credits and/or grants that could make preservation more financially viable.
We continue to fight for stronger historic preservation laws, ordinances, and precedents statewide and, while our bandwidth and resources are limited to issues of statewide impact, our hope is to one day have the tools we need to save and reuse all of Oregon’s historic and culturally significant places.
Restore Oregon does not offer home history research services. However, we can direct you to the best resources! We recommend beginning with the State Historic Preservation Office’s Oregon Historic Sites Database, which allows users to search for a property's history and information using its address or historical name. The information available ranges from basic to extensive physical and historical information about a property or group of related properties. It will also indicate if a property has been officially designated by listing in the National Register of Historic Places or determined eligible for listing by the National Park Service.
From there, you can contact your local history museum, historical society, or library. Your County Clerk or Tax Assessor may also be able to assist you. The Oregon Historical Society also offers a great collection of resources and information on researching house and building history, including many that can be accessed digitally. If you are looking for Portland-specific resources, we recommend checking out the archive at the Architectural Heritage Center. You might also be interested in the classes and workshops they offer.
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States' official list of buildings, districts, structures, sites, and objects essential to local, state, or national history. The program is run by the National Park Service and administered locally by the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, an Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) division. We recommend visiting the NRHP informational page on Oregon.gov for more information about the program and listing a property.
Yes! We recommend you explore the information on our Resources for Rural Oregon webpage.
Thank you for your interest–Restore Oregon does not receive any state or federal support and is entirely funded by our members/donors. Learn more about the many ways to support us. We’re excited to hear from you!
Restore Oregon does not accept donations of historical materials. Instead, we recommend contacting your local historical society or museum or, if you have surplus building materials, your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore (But your names sound the same–are you sure you’re not the ReStore? Yes, even though our names are similar–and we support their mission!–we are not affiliated with Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores.) We also recommend the Rebuilding Center in Portland and the Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage in Aurora. We encourage you to look up architectural salvage and see if there are alternatives in your area.
Yes! We depend on dedicated volunteers for our events throughout the year and occasionally for special projects. Let us know what you’re interested in by completing our volunteer application.
Contact us through our inquiry form, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
If the listed resources above have not answered your specific preservation or restoration questions, you can reach out for support from Restore Oregon by filling out our inquiry form. Our professionally trained preservationists keep up with the latest developments in restoration and reuse to answer your inquiries.