Nathaniel C. Guest

Nathaniel C. Guest is an attorney and preservation advocate. Guest is the founding director of the Keystone Marker Trust, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to enhancing community gateways through Pennsylvania's iconic roadside markers. In 2008, he founded the Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance to facilitate reuse of the former Pennhurst State School, an International Site of Conscience.

A steam locomotive engineer, Guest founded the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust to restore a Civil War-era rail line in southeastern Pennsylvania. He has served as an intern with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's legal department; director of the Cornell Tradition, a multimillion-dollar fellowship recognizing volunteer service; Tompkins County, New York, Human Rights Commissioner; and an elected representative on the Cornell Employee Assembly. He is a director for Preservation Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area and serves as the preservation programs director and National Heritage Grants chairman for the National Railway Historical Society, the nation's largest railway preservation organization.

Guest lectures on topics pertinent to preservation, including law, economics, advocacy, fundraising, and ethics. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1994 (magna cum laude), his J.D. from Temple University in 2010 (cum laude), and his M.A. in historic preservation planning from AAP in 2012.

Related Pages

Classes (Selected)

  • CRP 6640 Economics and Financing of Neighborhood Conservation and PreservationThe economic and financial aspects of historic preservation and neighborhood conservation. Topics include public finance, selected issues in urban economics, real estate economics, and private financing of real estate projects. Students will conduct a feasibility study for the re-use of an endangered historic property of their choosing, preparing a market study and proformas.
  • CRP 6650 Preservation Planning and Urban Change

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • Who's Who in Legal Practice (2012)
  • Community Action Award, Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia (2011)
  • Burton Award for Legal Achievement (2010)
  • Temple University Friedman Prize for Legal Writing (2010)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • Featured speaker and U.S. delegate, International Congress of Railway Cultural Heritage Conservation, Puebla, Mexico, (2012)
  • Speaker, Cornell University Historic Preservation Planning Symposium (2012)
  • Art of the Steal, panel discussion on the Moving of the Barnes Collection, Ithaca (2011)

Publications (Selected)

  • "A Preservationist's Perspective," Preserving Pennhurst: A World Apart, Penn State Press (forthcoming)
  • Putting History on a Stone Foundation: Toward Legal Rights for Historic Property, Temple University (2009)
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