The 25 – Eliot H. Lothrop

Eliot Lothrop is principal of Building Heritage, LLC, which combines the finest craftsmanship in traditional trades with advanced knowledge of historic preservation and timber framing ethics and rules.

Lothrop founded the Vermont-based company in 2004 after earning his master’s degree from the University of Vermont in Historic Preservation and earning valuable experience working in the field, notably for Jan Lewandoski on the restoration of Vermont’s iconic West Monitor Barn.

Since its launch, the company has specialized in stabilization and structural timber repairs of historic buildings with an emphasis on barns. It has preserved some of the state’s earliest barns and managed the adaptive reuse of some of its largest. It has also restored historic timber-frame houses, churches, covered bridges, and more.

As a timber frame expert, Lothrop works as a consultant for private clients and field schools (collaborations between the University of Vermont and the National Park Service).

He has been involved in the ongoing restoration of Las Flores Adobe Ranch in Oceanside, California. He also traveled with the Preservation Trust of Vermont to Cuba, where he and other preservation contractors spent a week visiting five churches in Santiago de Cuba and performing conditions assessments. For travel projects most recently, he and several Building Heritage crew members worked on the 180-foot-tall Moffett blimp hangars in San Francisco and a gold mining dredge in Breckenridge, Colorado.

In 2023, Lothrop was chosen to lead the restoration of the East Monitor Barn (he had done initial stabilization work already in 2004). Lothrop’s historic building preservation projects continue to expand in exciting new directions, now focusing on workforce development as well as working with the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps (the owners of the East Monitor Barn). Together with VYCC, Building Heritage has started a timber frame pre-apprentice program currently in its inaugural year with four amazing young timber framers.