National Trust for Historic Preservation Elects Brent Leggs as President and CEO
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has chosen Brent Leggs, a longtime internal leader and preservation advocate, as its next president and chief executive. The Congressionally chartered nonprofit, which is currently involved in lawsuits over Donald Trump’s plans for a new White House ballroom and a reimagined John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announced the appointment after a board vote.
Leggs has spent more than 20 years at the organization, most recently as executive director of the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. In that role, he helped steer support toward projects such as the protection of boxer Joe Frazier’s historic training gym and the restoration of singer Nina Simone’s childhood home in North Carolina. That restoration effort was led by artists Adam Pendleton, Rashid Johnson, and Julie Mehretu, underscoring the fund’s reach beyond conventional preservation circles.
According to the New York Times, Leggs becomes the 11th leader of the trust since its founding in 1949. He also served as a strategic adviser to outgoing president Carol Quillen, who is leaving for family reasons.
In comments to the Times, Leggs said that legal action was a measure of last resort, but one the organization felt compelled to take. “As incoming C.E.O. of the National Trust I remain in support of the organization’s position,” he said.
He also framed the trust’s broader mission in explicitly inclusive terms. “Telling a full American story is not about erasure,” Leggs said. “We will continue to advocate for an inclusive American story.”
His appointment arrives at a moment when preservation debates are increasingly entangled with questions of public memory, political power, and whose histories institutions choose to protect. For the National Trust, Leggs’ elevation signals continuity, but also a clear commitment to cultural heritage work that reaches well beyond landmark architecture.
