ABOUT ANNELISE KOUNS-WARBURTON

I have always been interested in the stories places hold.

Raised between the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida within a multigenerational Puerto Rican–Virgin Islander family, I developed a lifelong passion for architecture, heritage, and the stories embedded in place and family. My own family history crosses islands, continents, generations, and borders. That experience shaped the way I see heritage—not simply as something preserved in museums or historic buildings, but as something carried by people.

My work brings together architectural history, historic preservation, Caribbean research, genealogy, oral history, and documentation to explore those connections. I am interested in the relationships between people and place—how families shape communities, how migration transforms the built environment, and how stories, traditions, and memories travel across generations and borders.

The Caribbean is at the center of much of my work. Its islands and communities are connected by complex histories of migration, colonialism, trade, family, culture, and movement. Through research, documentation, and storytelling, I explore those connections and the ways they continue to shape the places and communities we know today.