The Foundation launched preservation work in 2022 with a NEH Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions and continued in 2023 with a Historical and Records Care Grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) grant. We purchased necessary archival conservation material for the House’s collections, and Conservator Wendy Jessup and environmental engineer Michael Henry completed an assessment of the House to help guide our preservation and care for the building and its contents.

In 2024, we received matching grants from the Johanna Favrot Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Keystone Historic Preservation Planning Program. The project team, consisting of Mira Nakashima, President, Zoriana Siokalo, Administrator/Grants Manager, David Long, Archivist, and Lauren Griffin, Programs Coordinator and Assistant Archivist, and John Lutz, General Manager of George Nakashima Woodworkers, worked with colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Historic Preservation Chair Frank Matero, Senior Research Associate John Hinchman, Research Associate Mojtaba Saffarian, Curator and Architectural Historian William Whitaker, and Environmental Engineer Michael Henry, and Conservator Wendy Jessup.

George built the house himself, yet we have no drawings that comprehensively document the design or its change over time. The team produced architectural drawings, photographs, environmental condition reports, laser scans for 3-D modeling of the House, and other planning documents assembled in a Historic Structures Report that will help guide us in implementing the preservation of the House.

The documentation process was as innovative as the building itself. Using laser scanning, 3D modeling, and archival research, we uncovered the layered evolution of the House and the logic behind its design and construction. This hybrid approach not only advances scholarly understanding of Nakashima’s architecture, it also makes that knowledge accessible to both experts and the wider public. In recognition of this work, the project received a 2025 Grand Jury Award for Preservation Achievement from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

The architectural historian and Foundation staff conducted in-depth research in the family archives which have been largely untouched for decades and stored throughout the House. This material helped inform the writing of a detailed narrative and timeline of the Nakashima family and their move from the Pacific Northwest, the family’s incarceration at Minidoka during World War II, and their eventual move onto the New Hope property in 1946.