Preservation Carpentry

The comprehensive Preservation Carpentry program teaches the time-honored skills and values of fine craftsmanship. Our students share a love of history, materials, quality workmanship, and working with their hands to build, restore, and preserve beautiful structures that last.

The two-year program combines an introduction to contemporary residential construction with a foundation in pre-20th century New England home construction. You’ll learn a broad range of construction methods, including stabilizing endangered buildings, preserving architectural details, and recreating historical design elements. Through lectures, hands-on projects, and collaborative field work, you’ll gain an understanding of how current technology compares to traditional techniques.

The program space includes first and second year bench rooms, where each student is assigned a bench and work space, and a central machine room. New England’s rich historical legacy of pre-20th century buildings provides exceptional field projects. Such site work is often done in collaboration with non-profit museums and historical sites.

Faculty

Steven O'Shaughnessy PC ’99

STEVEN O'SHAUGHNESSY PC ’99

Steven is a graduate of our Preservation Carpentry program, teaches first-year students, and is head of the department. He worked for Historic New England for six years as a carpenter. During this time, he supervised NBSS students as summer interns. He earned a Historic New England President’s Award through his work with second-year NBSS students on the preservation of the Pierce House in Dorchester. He has also served as an instructor for Boston YouthBuild’s preservation carpentry component. Steven has guided first-year students through restoration work on many historic properties in the Boston area, including the 1713 Old State House. In 2010, his class saved an 18th-century two-bay English barn from demolition in Hanover, MA.

Michael Burrey

MICHAEL BURREY

Michael is the second-year instructor for the Preservation Carpentry Program. He specializes in timber-frame joinery and has researched and re-created 17th century methods of roof thatching, interior walls, and paint finishes. After studying Early American and Colonial Life as an undergraduate, he worked as an Interpretive Artisan at Plimoth Plantation researching and interpreting colonial building techniques. In 1999, Michael established MLB Restorations in order to work on the restoration and preservation of historic buildings and to encourage the design of new structures in harmony with traditional and sustainable building methods. His carpentry skill has been recognized by his selection in 2014 by the Historic Royal Palaces to carry out the hewing and squaring of new timbers to be used in the repair of the Tower of London.

Schedule

Tuition

September 2021-July 2022 tuition is $25,500 per year totaling $51,000*, with the option of making 18 monthly payments of $2,833.
The estimated cost of hand tools is $3,700.
The estimated cost of books is $250.
Students are responsible for materials for their own projects.
Students are responsible for their own transportation to site work and class trips.
Students who complete the program receive a Diploma of Preservation Carpentry.

* North Bennet Street School reserves the right to increase tuition in the second and subsequent years of a course. If the school does increase tuition for a course in subsequent years, that increase will not exceed 7.5% of the previous year’s tuition. Should the school exercise its right to increase tuition, the school must give the student a minimum of ninety (90) days written notice prior to the effective date of the increase and a new enrollment agreement will be executed.

How to Fund Your EducationFinancial aid, scholarships, and veterans benefits available for qualified students

Careers

Graduates of our Preservation Carpentry program go on to be restoration carpenters, museum conservators, owners of full-service design/build companies, and more.

Some of the notable organizations for which they’ve worked include:

EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK AND WAGE INFORMATION

More than 90% of our graduates work in related fields. However, it’s difficult to find statistical employment data for specialized trades like preservation carpentry. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) classifies this as Carpentry, which includes many specialized trades. Visit the DOL website to explore the general outlook for carpentry careers. Payscale reports wage data for the Historic Preservation Industry. This classification doesn’t match the description for preservation carpentry exactly, but you can use it as a general guide. According to Payscale, the average annual salary for a construction superintendent in the historic preservation industry was $40,461 as of 2016. The median salary for an Architectural Historian is listed as $48,757 as of 2018. Comparatively, the average annual salary for carpenters was $44,460.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Job openings for preservation carpenters depend heavily on geographic location. Areas with high concentrations of historic properties will have more opportunities for preservation carpenters. Visit the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) to see a map.

Of course, there are many more places than those listed in the NRHP that need skilled preservation carpenters. Visit the following pages to view opportunities in historic preservation:

Job openings with The National Register of Historic Places, which are government jobs and are posted on usajobs.gov.
Job board at the National Trust for Historic Preservation
Employment opportunities at PreserveNet
News and Job openings at PreservationDirectory.com
The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers has links to State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO) nationwide.

Program News

In the Making: Earth-Bound Building

On Thursday, November 18, 2021 Blain Snipstal—founder, designer, and lead builder of Earth-Bound Building—joined us in conversation with Preservation Carpentry Instructor Michael Burrey. Blain and Michael talked in-depth on the negative impacts modern construction have on our planet and how low-impact building can benefit us all, intersections with historic preservation, and the difficulties the face in building green. Plus, Michael gave a tour of his lime pit and kiln! Watch the full event.

In the Making: Notre Dame Truss Project

On Thursday, November, 4, we explored how our 2021 Preservation Carpentry graduates joined a team in Washington D.C., recreating a full-scale truss of the damaged Notre Dame Cathedral using only medieval carpentry techniques. Joining us were Rick and Laura Brown of Handshouse Studio who created and led the project, and Henry Newhard, an alumni of the Preservation Carpentry program who was part of the crew.

Learning Happens Everywhere

Every year, our Carpentry and Preservation Carpentry programs tackle real-world projects outside of the classroom, whether in partnership with museums, nonprofits, private clients, and everywhere in between. Catch up with new and old projects from recent years here.

Preservation Carpentry Students Rescue Former Plymouth Post Office

After a giant pine tree fell on the middle of a former post office building in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the second-year Preservation Carpentry students took the restoration project on as a learning opportunity. Read more about this remarkable restoration project.