Foyer at Cooper Molera Adobe | Credit History Associates

This post was updated October 2, 2017.

As the National Trust has worked to develop a shared use model for Cooper-Molera in Monterey, California, we have worked to make our process as transparent as possible so that our lessons learned can be used by historic sites, house museums, and other types of historic properties around the country. While every historic property has unique challenges and opportunities, we feel that our work at Cooper-Molera has allowed us to develop and refine an approach to shared use that is widely applicable—from stakeholder engagement to initial planning for interpretation and from collections to preservation principles that also support the re-imagination of a site.

As part of our outreach effort, we are doing both onsite and online sessions entitled Commerce + Interpretation: The Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Principles of Shared Use at Historic Sites during the 2015 AASLH Annual Meeting in Louisville (#AASLH2015).  We have also developed this toolkit to assist other stewards of historic properties in considering a shared use model. You can access all documents related to shared use at Cooper-Molera in the relevant library entry.

Preservation Leadership Forum Blog Posts

• Shared Use in Action at Cooper-Molera Adobe
• It’s In the Details: Discovering the Full Potential of a Historic Site’s Museum Collections
• Shared Use at Historic Sites: A Legal Perspective

City of Monterey Shared Use Video

Additional Resources

• Cooper-Molera Adobe Concept Paper
• Cooper-Molera Interpretation Alternatives
• Cooper-Molera Preservation Principles
• Forum Webinar: Commerce + Interpretation: The Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Principles of Shared Use at Historic Sites (September 2017)

Additional Videos

Katherine Malone-France is the vice president for historic sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.