By Mindy Crawford | August 17, 2026
When The Yorktowne Hotel was chosen as the site of the 2026 Pennsylvania Statewide Conference on Heritage, it felt like much more than selecting a conference venue.
It felt like coming home.
Preservation Pennsylvania has a long history with The Yorktowne. Over the years, we held conferences and Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards programs there. It was a place where preservationists from across the Commonwealth gathered to learn from one another, recognize good work, renew friendships, and talk about the places that matter to their communities.
Image: Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards at The Yorktowne Hotel, 2016.
For me, though, The Yorktowne was personal long before I came to Preservation Pennsylvania.
Before joining Preservation Pennsylvania, I spent 24 years at Historic York, Inc., including 19 years as executive director. During those years, The Yorktowne was simply where things happened in York.
I had lunches with board members in the private dining room. I met friends at Autographs and enjoyed The Yorktowne’s famous tomato soup – which, happily, is still on the menu. Every Wednesday, I was there for lunch as a Rotarian. And one memorable day, I found myself sharing an elevator with Meat Loaf when he was in town performing at the Strand.
Those are small memories, perhaps, but together they represent something much larger. The Yorktowne was part of the rhythm of downtown York. For generations, people celebrated there, held meetings there, conducted business there, stayed there, ate there, and made memories there.
And then it closed.
Shortly after Preservation Pennsylvania held its last awards program at The Yorktowne, the hotel shut its doors, and its future became deeply uncertain.
For me, the potential loss was more than professional. It was personal. But it was also exactly the kind of situation that Preservation Pennsylvania exists to address: an important historic place, a difficult set of circumstances, and no obvious path forward.
In 2017, we placed The Yorktowne on our Pennsylvania At Risk list.
Being named At Risk does not save a building. There is no magic that happens when a property appears on the list. What the program can do is focus attention on a threatened place, help people understand what is at stake, encourage conversations, and sometimes create the momentum needed to begin finding a solution.
So I started calling people.
I knew York. After working there for 24 years, I knew a lot of people. And I called them.
All of them.
Image: Mindy Crawford speaks at the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards, 2016.
I talked about The Yorktowne. I talked about why it mattered. I talked about possibilities. I tried to find someone who could see not only the enormous challenges presented by the building, but also its potential.
Eventually, the York County Economic Alliance reached out and asked me to come talk about Historic Tax Credits and whether they might offer a path forward.
That conversation was only one small step in what would become a very long and complicated journey. Ultimately, the York County Economic Alliance took on the extraordinary challenge of becoming the developer and moving the rehabilitation forward.
Image: Preservationists gather at The Yorktowne Hotel, 2016.
Saving a building of this size and complexity is never simple. It requires financing, partnerships, technical expertise, perseverance, difficult decisions, and an enormous willingness to keep going when the process becomes frustrating or uncertain. Historic Tax Credits became an important part of making the rehabilitation possible, but they were one piece of a much larger undertaking.
The result is The Yorktowne we know today: once again open, once again welcoming guests, and once again serving as an anchor in downtown York.
Image: The Yorktowne Hotel arrival plaza before and after rehabilitation.
Image: The Yorktowne Hotel rooftop lounge before and after rehabilitation.
In 2023, Preservation Pennsylvania had the great pleasure of recognizing The Yorktowne rehabilitation with a Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award. Around here, we have a particular affection for projects that make the journey from At Risk to Award. They are our favorite kind of success story because they demonstrate why advocacy matters. A place that once appeared to have no future is not simply still standing – it is contributing to its community again.
Image: Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards at The Yorktowne Hotel, 2016.
And now, in September, Preservation Pennsylvania is returning. From September 15-17, The Yorktowne will host the Pennsylvania Statewide Conference on Heritage, and this year’s theme could hardly be more appropriate: Preservation in Practice.
The conference will bring together preservation professionals, advocates, organizations, public agencies, community leaders, and others from across Pennsylvania to talk about the real work of preservation – the successes, the difficult decisions, the tools we use, the partnerships we build, and the challenges that remain.
And this year, the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards are part of the conference, bringing two of Preservation Pennsylvania’s signature events together at a place that has played an important role in the history of both. The Awards will take place Wednesday afternoon, September 16, and are included with full conference registration.
Image: Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award presentation at The Yorktowne Hotel, 2012.
There is something wonderfully fitting about that.
We will sit in rooms inside a building that was once threatened and talk about how to save historic places.
We will discuss Historic Tax Credits in a building whose rehabilitation demonstrates what that tool can help accomplish.
We will talk about advocacy in a place that required people to advocate for it.
We will recognize outstanding preservation achievements in a hotel that itself went from Pennsylvania At Risk to a Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award.
The Yorktowne is more than the place where we are holding this year’s conference.
It is the story of this year’s conference theme.
It is Preservation in Practice.
And I cannot imagine a better place for us to gather.