Histoury’s exclusive stop in Marblehead has been rescheduled. The nonprofit organization delivers extensive guided tours on foot and by bus with the goal of educating participants on the architectural history of a given location. Seaside North Shore: A Bus Tour of Shingle Style Homes was originally slated to come to Marblehead and Swampscott on Sept. 17. However, Histoury announced last Tuesday that it is being postponed to Sunday, Nov. 5.
Georgette Blau founded Histoury using the nearly two decades of experience she gained as the founder of New York’s On Location Tours, one of the largest television and movie location tour companies. Histoury’s inaugural tour was slated to launch in spring 2020, until the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its launch. It got back on its feet in 2022 and have not looked back with numerous unique tours in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
“Our mission is to get people to appreciate these historic buildings and ultimately get more people involved with understanding what it takes to preserve them,” Tour Production Manager Allison Casazza said. “We want to inform people about how these buildings get preserved and hopefully get people to become more involved and aware of preservation in their own communities.”
From research to reenactments, a lot of logistical planning is required for Casazza and her team to accomplish their goal of preservation awareness.
“We coordinate with private homeowners as well as public buildings that fit within our tour theme,” Casazza said. “We’ll include a few stops where people are getting off the bus and get a chance to see the exteriors of these buildings up close, 360 all around of the properties and the interiors.”
Histoury conducts all its own research, and Casazza revealed that preparing for a Massachusetts tour can have its advantages in maximizing the amount of information that can be provided.
“Massachusetts is fantastic with the cultural resource information that they have online,” Casazza said. “A lot of these buildings have been researched and have their histories available… Massachusetts does deserve a lot of credit for how they’re delivering this information to the public and making it accessible.”
Nov. 5 attendees can expect to see more than 20 shingle-style buildings of various sizes throughout the nearly four-hour bus tour that goes along the coast. Casazza will be serving as tour guide for the third time and expects the extended wait to be worth it.
“If the weather’s great I think it will be a really nice afternoon to drive up and down the coast and work our way into some of the side streets in town, it will be really great,” Casazza said.
Tickets can be booked online at histoury.org. Prices are set at $75 for one adult ticket and $49 as a discounted student rate.