07/07/2026
Real estate professionals need to be aware of the reality impacting our historic and gorgeous Chesapeake Bay region. Stay informed, help educate our clients, protect this beautiful backyard of ours!
Why would a real estate center spend a day on a slowly disappearing island in the Chesapeake Bay? Because Tangier Island is one of the clearest lessons in place, heritage, and climate resilience you'll find anywhere.
Recently, members of McIntire's White Ruffin Byron Center for Real Estate joined AIA Virginia's historic tour of Tangier Island, an immersive look at one of the Chesapeake's most historically significant communities.
The tour was led by UVA School of Architecture Ph.D. candidate Lincoln Lewis, whose research documents the island's working landscape, and whose fieldwork, completed with former UVA student Andy Packwood, earned national recognition through the Historic American Landscapes Survey and preservation in the Library of Congress.
Why does this matter to anyone in real estate? Because Tangier raises the questions our field increasingly has to answer. As erosion and rising waters reduce the island's landmass, communities everywhere are confronting preservation, displacement, and climate resilience, not as abstractions, but as decisions about homes, land, and heritage.
Studying a place like Tangier is how you learn that real estate is never only about property. It's about people and the landscapes that hold their history.
Read about the visit, link in the comments.
