Mark Twain House Names New Executive Director

Pieter Nicholson Roos begins as the new executive director at the Mark Twain House July 5.

Roos most recently served as executive director of the Newport Restoration Foundation in Newport, Rhode Island, a preservation and museum organization that owns and administers nearly ninety 18^th- and 19^th-century properties in and around Newport. Under Roos’s leadership, the Foundation transformed Rough Point, Doris Duke’s Newport home, from private house to one of the city’s premier house museums. Among other initiatives during Roos’s tenure, the NRF in 2010 led an effort to revise Newport’s Queen Anne Square with a new design by nationally renowned artist Maya Lin.

Roos has written extensively about museums, architecture, and material culture; he also lectures widely on those topics. Over the years he has served on many boards and committees in Rhode Island, including the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, New England Museum Association, The Governor’s Commission on the King Charles Charter, the Governor’s Commission on World Heritage, Discover Newport, the Watercraft Collections Committee of Mystic Seaport, the Advisory Board of the International Yacht Restoration School, the Trinity Church Landmark Preservation Fund, and the Properties Committee of the Newport Historical Society.

Roos has served in the museum field since 1984. His career began at Sleepy Hollow Restorations (now Historic Hudson Valley). After earning his M.A. in museum studies at the Cooperstown Program, he administered historic sites for the Morris County Park Commission in Morris County, New Jersey. He went to Newport in 1993 to become Director of Education for the Newport Historical Society.