Strategic guidance for heritage properties at threshold moments: inheritance, generational transfer, major stewardship decisions.
For families who recognize their land isn't just an asset, but a multi-generational responsibility requiring both ecological understanding and strategic planning. We work at the intersection of architecture, ecology, and family systems.
You receive: comprehensive site assessment, stakeholder alignment, implementation roadmap, and the internal clarity needed to move forward.
This is advisory work for decisions that shape a place for the next century.
You inherited a place with history and complexity. We help you align on stewardship visions that honor the legacy while building a sustainable path forward.
Multiple stakeholders, competing visions, unclear decision-making. We facilitate alignment around what the place needs and what's possible for the next century.
You've acquired a property with depth: historic significance, ecological potential, or cultural weight. We help you listen to what the place wants before you act.
Most estate planning separates what should be integrated. Lawyers handle trusts. Architects address buildings. Land managers focus on ecology. Financial advisors optimize assets. Each works in isolation, leaving families to connect the pieces themselves.
We bridge these interconnected elements into a unified stewardship strategy.
This work integrates architecture, ecology, strategic planning, and place-based methodology. Informed by decades of site analysis and estate advisory experience.
Deep site analysis covering ecological systems, climate patterns, water flows, and bioregional context. Understanding what the land needs, not just what owners want.
Assessment of existing structures, their architectural significance, adaptive reuse potential, and integration with landscape. Buildings as part of place, not separate from it.
Multi-generational visioning that addresses inheritance dynamics, differing values, and the emotional complexity of stewarding meaningful places.
We coordinate the architect, ecologist, estate lawyer, financial advisor-you don't manage five consultants, we integrate them. We attend family meetings, coordinate all specialists, and handle the complexity while you focus on decisions that matter.
Regenerative land management strategies, biodiversity enhancement, climate resilience, and stewardship practices that improve ecological health over decades.
Clear sequencing of decisions, consultant team assembly, and phased approach that allows for learning and adaptation over time.
We begin with deep listening: to the place, to the family, to the tensions between what is and what could be. This isn't standard consulting. It's strategic guidance for decisions that will shape a place for generations.
The deliverable is a comprehensive stewardship plan that integrates all elements: ecological assessment, architectural strategy, family governance structures, financial modeling, and implementation timeline. Everything needed to move forward with clarity and confidence.
Most importantly, we help families understand their relationship to the place they're stewarding. You can't outsource that relationship. You can only clarify it, strengthen it, and build structures that support it across generations.
Complete confidentiality-we understand family legacy involves sensitive dynamics.
Jo Petroni is an architect and strategic advisor specializing in estate transitions. Her work bridges deep place understanding with future thinking, helping estate owners, place stewards, and families navigate the complex process of moving irreplaceable properties toward their next stage.
Based in France with global project experience, Jo brings decades of expertise in site analysis, strategic planning, and property development to each advisory engagement.
Jo also provides mentorship to stewards of place: one-on-one guidance for those who find themselves responsible for a place that matters, whether you inherited it, chose it, or it chose you.
Connect on LinkedIn →Alissa inherited a Cape Cod legacy estate, with 14 generations of family history sitting on what was once indigenous land. The weight wasn't just property management. It was trying to figure out: What does ethical stewardship actually look like when you're an oldcomer? When land acknowledgment feels hollow without action? When you know this came from extraction and you want to break that pattern?
She found Jo's Listen to Your Land process. Something shifted in both strategy and her actual relationship to the place. She could sit with all of it now: the history, the responsibility, the guilt, the beauty. Things started moving.
Now they bring this work together to other people carrying inherited land, wealth, or property who want to do things differently. People at threshold moments asking: "How do I hold this without causing more harm? What does this place actually want from me? How do I stop being just an owner?"
Learn More About Alissa's Work →
If you're stewarding a property at a threshold moment and need strategic clarity, we'd welcome a conversation.
This work requires both vision and practical understanding. We help you see what's possible while building a path that serves both the place and the people who will steward it next.
We work with 4-6 properties per year. Most clients are referred by estate attorneys or previous families. Initial qualification call determines fit and timeline.
Jo Petroni
Based in France with global project experience.