Historic Preservation Easements

Preserving Heritage for Future Generations

Updated February 5, 2026.

Through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Easement Program, property owners can voluntarily protect the historical, architectural, and archaeological integrity of their properties by establishing a permanent preservation easement.

Protection & Stewardship

A Lasting Tool for Protecting Historic Character

Preservation easements can help ensure that a significant historic property is protected beyond one owner’s period of stewardship.

A preservation easement may place limitations on future development, prohibit certain activities, and require prior approval for specific changes. While the owner retains ownership, use, and control of the land, the easement creates lasting protections designed to help preserve the property’s historic character and significance.

For important historic homes, estates, farms, and architectural properties, an easement can become part of a broader preservation strategy — helping protect original materials, setting, scale, landscape context, and defining architectural features for future generations.

Before You Begin

Easements Require Careful Review and Long-Term Planning

Preservation easements can be powerful tools, but they are also long-term legal commitments. Owners should understand how an easement may affect future improvements, maintenance decisions, development potential, and marketability.

Permanent protections
Easements are typically intended to protect historic resources over time, which means future owners may also be bound by the terms of the agreement.

Review before changes
Exterior alterations, additions, demolitions, site work, and other changes may require review or approval depending on the terms of the easement.

Professional guidance
Owners should consult qualified legal, tax, preservation, and real estate professionals before placing a property under easement or relying on potential financial benefits.

Seller Perspective

Easements Should Be Explained with Clarity

When a historic property is protected by an easement, buyers need to understand both the privilege and the responsibility of ownership.

Historic easements are not simply restrictions. For the right buyer, they can affirm the significance of a property and help preserve the very qualities that make it valuable: architecture, setting, craftsmanship, landscape, and provenance.

When marketing an easement-protected property, the easement should be presented carefully, accurately, and in context so buyers understand what is protected, what approvals may be required, and why the property’s historic integrity matters.

Official Resource

Learn More About Historic Home Easements

The Virginia Department of Historic Resources provides additional information about preservation easements, eligibility, protections, and the responsibilities involved in placing a historic property under easement.

Before pursuing, modifying, buying, or selling a property with a preservation easement, owners and buyers should review the official program details and consult with qualified legal, tax, real estate, and preservation professionals.

Page updated May 31, 2026.

Historic Homes & Estates Seller Representation

Experience Matters. Let’s Put It to Work for You.

Bridget Archer of McLean Faulconer representing Virginia country homes, farms, horse properties, and historic estates in Central Virginia

Bridget Archer
McLean Faulconer, Inc.

Listing & Selling Central Virginia Historic Homes

Historic homes deserve thoughtful representation that understands architecture, provenance, setting, and story. Contact Bridget Archer for refined marketing and experienced guidance designed to position your historic home with care, clarity, and distinction.

Seller Marketing Network

Historic Homes Deserve More Than Exposure. They Deserve Context.

A connected website network created to position historic homes, country estates, farms, and properties with architecture, acreage, setting, and a story worth understanding.

VirginiaHistoricEstates.com gives historic homes and estates a focused place within the larger VirginiaCountryLiving.com marketing network — a group of property-specific websites built around the way buyers search for distinctive Charlottesville and Central Virginia real estate.

A historic home is rarely defined by age alone. It may also be a country estate, a farm, an equestrian property, a private retreat, or a legacy property with land. The network allows each property to be understood through the qualities that make it meaningful: architecture, craftsmanship, setting, gardens, outbuildings, acreage, privacy, provenance, lifestyle, and long-term value.

For sellers, this creates more than visibility. It creates context — helping the right buyers recognize the full character, history, and value of the property before they ever arrive.

Charlottesville horse farms and equestrian properties with barns and riding arenas

Charlottesville Horse Farms

CharlottesvilleEquestrianProperties.com is the equestrian-property resource within the network, created for buyers searching for horse farms, barns, arenas, fenced pasture, turnout, riding trails, acreage, and horse-friendly land near Charlottesville.

A horse farm is often more than an equestrian property. It may also be a country estate, a historic farmhouse, a working farm, or a private rural retreat. This site helps buyers understand the property through its equestrian function, while the larger network connects that search to land, history, privacy, architecture, and lifestyle.

For historic-property sellers, this matters when a home with age and architecture also includes barns, pasture, fencing, or acreage suited to horses. It gives the property another meaningful way to be found and understood.

Virginia historic homes and estates with historic architecture

Virginia Historic Homes

VirginiaHistoricEstates.com is the historic-home resource within the network, built for buyers searching for old homes, antique residences, historic estates, old farmhouses, country manors, and architecturally significant properties with land.

A historic property should not be marketed only by age, square footage, or bedroom count. Its value is often found in craftsmanship, setting, original detail, gardens, dependencies, mature trees, acreage, and the sense of permanence that makes it impossible to duplicate.

This site gives historic properties the context they need, while the larger network connects them to buyers also searching for country estates, farms, horse properties, acreage, and rural lifestyle.

Charlottesville country estates and luxury rural properties in Central Virginia

Charlottesville Country Estates

CharlottesvilleCountryEstates.com is the estate-property resource within the network, created for buyers searching for luxury homes with acreage, private rural retreats, country estates, historic homes with land, farms, horse properties, and distinctive residences near Charlottesville.

Many historic homes are also estate properties. They may offer privacy, gardens, guest space, barns, mature trees, long approaches, views, or meaningful acreage. This site helps frame those properties as complete country estates, not simply old houses on land.

For sellers, that means stronger positioning: the property can be discovered for its setting, scale, lifestyle, land, architecture, and long-term value.

Virginia country homes, farms, horse properties, historic homes, and distinctive rural residences in Central Virginia

Virginia Country Living

VirginiaCountryLiving.com is the central country-property hub of the network, bringing together buyers searching for country homes, farms, horse properties, historic homes, estates, acreage, and distinctive rural residences throughout Central Virginia.

Buyers rarely search in only one category. The same person may be looking for a historic farmhouse, country estate, horse farm, acreage property, or private retreat. This hub helps connect those overlapping interests in one broader country-property setting.

For sellers of historic homes, the benefit is broader context. A property can be seen through every quality that makes it meaningful — age, architecture, land, privacy, views, gardens, outbuildings, setting, and lifestyle.

Charlottesville country properties, rural homes, small farms, and acreage properties in Central Virginia

Charlottesville Country Properties

CharlottesvilleCountryProperties.com is being developed as a focused resource for buyers searching for country homes, acreage properties, smaller farms, rural retreats, older farmhouses, and simple country living near Charlottesville.

This site supports the more approachable side of the country-property market — homes with land, barns, gardens, workshops, privacy, usable acreage, and a quieter rural setting without requiring the scale of a formal estate.

For historic-property sellers, it adds another meaningful search path for older homes that may not feel formal or grand, but still offer character, land, usefulness, privacy, and a rooted sense of place.

Charlottesville farms and estates, working farms, country homes, horse farms, and acreage properties in Central Virginia

Charlottesville Farms and Estates

CharlottesvilleFarmsandEstates.com is being developed as a focused resource for buyers interested in farms, estate acreage, working land, barns, pasture, hay fields, fencing, water sources, and productive rural property near Charlottesville.

This site is built around the land-centered side of the market, where acreage, infrastructure, soil, water, fencing, barns, field layout, and practical use can be as important as the residence itself.

Many historic homes are part of older farm properties. This site helps bring forward the fields, barns, infrastructure, productivity, stewardship, and practical land value that farm-minded buyers care about most.

Seller Representation

Thinking of Selling a Historic Home, Estate, or Property with History in Central Virginia?

A historic home, antique residence, country manor, old farmhouse, or legacy estate should be positioned for buyers who understand architecture, age, craftsmanship, setting, acreage, gardens, provenance, and the quiet power of a property with history. Contact Bridget Archer to discuss how your property can be prepared, presented, and placed within a focused website network designed for distinctive Charlottesville and Central Virginia properties.