Brice House Goes Window Shopping

By Kathy Knotts

The James Brice House will be able to restore 74 of its original windows thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Park Service. Historic Annapolis announced last week that they have been awarded the federal grant to support the state-of-the-art restoration of the site, a National Historic Landmark located in downtown Annapolis.

“This federal grant, along with the significant investment by the State of Maryland and private donors, helps advance our efforts to preserve this important architectural treasure in time for the nation’s semiquincentennial,” said Karen Theimer Brown, president and CEO of HA. “We look forward to celebrating this restored building with the public and sharing the full and inclusive history of all the people who lived and worked here, the time period it represents, and the building as a symbol of our nation’s journey to independence.” 

NPS recently awarded $7 million in the inaugural round of funding for the Semiquincentennial Grant Program commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Created by Congress in 2020 and funded through the Historic Preservation Fund, this round of grants will support 17 cultural resource preservation projects across 12 states that had an impact on the founding of the American nation. Historic Annapolis is one of two Maryland organizations to receive an award from the program.

Awarded funds will support the restoration of the 74 original windows throughout the Brice House, which is a key part of the overall project. The windows need repairs to preserve the historic material and craftsmanship, protect the building from moisture infiltration, and help regulate interior environmental conditions. 

The James Brice House is one of the largest and most elegant of Annapolis’s historic homes, and one of the most important surviving structures from colonial America. The state purchased the James Brice House in 2014 and arranged for Historic Annapolis to maintain and manage the property. In 2016, HA embarked on a multi-year, multi-million dollar restoration of the Brice House. The experts working on the restoration project are highly respected in their fields and have worked on some of the nation’s most important historic structures including Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, Drayton Hall, and the Maryland State House. 

Congress appropriated funding for the Semiquincentennial Grant Program through the Historic Preservation Fund, which uses revenue from federal oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf, assisting with a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars, with the intent to mitigate the loss of a nonrenewable resource to benefit the preservation of other irreplaceable resources.