BIOGRAPHY
Lyssa Papazian moved to Vermont in 1998 and started her own historic preservation consulting business which she still runs. She has been working professionally in the field of historic preservation for over 30 years. She lives on a farm in Putney with her husband.
As a Putney Historical Society (PHS) board member since 1998, Lyssa has helped PHS become an active and creative agent for village re-vitalization through two key downtown projects: the $1.3 million Putney General Store Reconstruction, completed in 2011, and the $1.6 million Next Stage Performing Arts Center historic adaptive reuse of a former church completed in 2013. Lyssa currently serves as Chair of the board of the Preservation Trust of Vermont which supports the revitalization of villages and downtowns throughout the state. She also has served as Putney Selectboard Member, Town Service officer and has been a member of the Putney Affordable Housing Committee and the Conservation Commission. She is currently the co-chair of Putney’s Downtown Revitalization Task Force, formed in 2023.
EDUCATION
1992 M.S., Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania
1989/90 Preservation-related course work, Univ. of Vermont & Univ. of Massachusetts
1982 A.B., Art & American Studies, Brown University
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1998 – Current Historic Preservation Consultant – Architectural Historian, Putney VT
Lyssa Papazian, Historic Preservation Consulting is a woman-owned sole proprietorship specializing in historic preservation planning, funding, regulation, documentation, and architectural history and has been operating in Vermont since 1998. The firm has worked with a wide variety of clients including municipalities, state and county agencies, schools, museums, and other institutions, non-profits, affordable housing providers, businesses, property owners/developers, planning firms, engineers and architects. Services include National Register of Historic Places nominations, historic preservation plans and reports, the rehabilitation of historic buildings, historic tax credit applications, historic structures reports and other forms of documentation, regulatory review of state and federally funded projects, grant writing, project management, history exhibits, and architectural history.
Ms. Papazian meets the qualification standards of the National Park Service (36 CFR Part 61) for architectural historian and historic preservation professional. She is currently included on the pre-approved lists of historic preservation consultants by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation, and the Preservation Trust of Vermont.
1992-1998 Senior Historic Preservation Specialist, New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office (HPO), Trenton, NJ
36 CFR Part 61 qualified professional and architectural historian, specializing in Section 106 review (Primarily USHUD-funded projects statewide), housing, and regulatory review of state-funded preservation projects through the New Jersey Historic Trust. Work included regulatory review, producing workshops/publications on multiple preservation topics, membership on HPO eligibility committee; Advisory Committee developing NJ’s Rehabilitation Building Sub-code; The Governor’s Lead-Based Paint Hazard Task Force; Governor’s Urban Enterprise Program