$56,000 awarded to Reserve’s historic buildings

The Trust Board of Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve and the Friends of Ebey’s recently announced that nine historic buildings will receive Ebey’s Forever Preservation Grants in 2019.

Now in its ninth year, this community-driven grant program supports the preservation, rehabilitation and continued use of historic buildings within Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve by providing annual matching grants to stabilize and sustain iconic heritage buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The grant program is funded entirely through private donations to Friends of Ebey’s, a Whidbey Island nonprofit organization that supports the reserve. Friends of Ebey’s committed another $50,000 of funding in March.

“Last month we had a fundraising event with Coupeville’s bayleaf that raised nearly $30,000 towards the grant program,” Alix Roos, executive director of the Friends of Ebey’s, said in a press release. “People understand the value the landscape adds to our lives. The buildings are storytellers.

“Along with helping our neighbors and farmers, it has also circulated more than a million dollars into the local economy. The investment is apparent everywhere you turn.”

Since its inception, the grant program has funded more than 70 preservation projects, ranging from painstaking roof replacements on Victorian homes to foundation repair for some of the reserve’s important working barns.

“Each year we are amazed at the dedication of the owners who apply,” Kristen Griffin, Trust Board reserve manager said, “and grateful to the community that keeps this wonderful program going. Hopefully, ‘Ebey’s Forever’ means just that.”

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve was established in 1978 to protect a rural community and its significant history. Preservation is accomplished through partnerships, conservation easements, local land use regulation, and the cooperation of land owners.