Pat
Butler (b. 1944)
Pat is one of the island's leading voices for historic preservation.
Her early sense of place and appreciation for diverse types of structures
grew out of her school years in the western Massachusetts mill town
of Holyoke - combined with travel to Brazil, England, Finland, and
Egypt, and later her studies in art history at Mt. Holyoke College.
Pat lived in Chicago, Cambridge, and Newton and then settled with
her sons Brian and Peter in Madison, Wisconsin, where she worked with
architectural historian Dr. Narciso Menocal at the University of Wisconsin.
After working for the state historical society and the city, Pat began
her work for the historic preservation of Nantucket as the first administrator
of the Nantucket Historic District Commission, in 1986. Eleven years
later Pat became the executive director of the Nantucket Preservation
Trust, which is uniquely dedicated to education and advocacy for the
preservation of the island's 2,400-plus late seventeenth-, eighteenth-,
and nineteenth-century structures. With Margaret Moore Booker and
Rose Gonnella, Pat coauthored the 2003 New York Times Book
of the Year, Sea-Captains' Houses and Rose-Covered Cottages: The
Architectural Heritage of Nantucket Island.
The
embroidered narrative shows the Richard Gardner III house at 34
West Chester Street, where Pat lives in an adjoining cottage; the
neighboring Lily Pond, with its rich variety of animal life; and
Pat's grandchildren following her on a walk.
