The Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust announced Friday that longtime executive director Christopher Scott will retire this year, after 25 years on the job.

The trust preserves historic buildings for active use and owns, among other things the Dr. Daniel Fisher House in Edgartown, Alley’s General Store in West Tisbury and the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.

Mr. Scott will step down at the end of the year, trustees said in a press release. A search will begin immediately for his replacement. “Our board views the coming months as a celebration of Chris’s time here,” the release said.

Mr. Scott turns 65 next year. “Sometimes milestones are just numbers on a calendar, they don’t necessarily mean anything,” he told the Gazette Friday. “But the milestones do cause reflection . . . . I still really enjoy the job, and I think it would be great for the organization to embark on a really thoughtful, organized transition plan.”

The plan calls for hiring a new director by Jan. 1, 2017. An 18-month planned transition period will allow Mr. Scott to oversee the completion of a project to convert the Carnegie building in Edgartown to a maritime museum, the press release said.

Mr. Scott took the job in 1992, having previously worked in building and landscape architecture in New York city and Boston. At the time the preservation trust owned seven properties and one historic landscape. Today it owns 21 properties and four historic landscapes. The properties run the gamut from the stately old Whaling Church in Edgartown to the iconic Flying Horses carousel at the foot of Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs to the Marshall farm on Chappaquiddick.

“We are a nonprofit, we do the normal nonprofit things but we also run multiple businesses,” Mr. Scott said. “We run a wedding business, a performing arts business, a commercial real estate business, community real estate business, retail business . . . .they all have various requirements and you have to run them in a reasonable fashion.”

The trust also owns the Vineyard Gazette building in Edgartown that houses the newspaper’s business and editorial offices and printing press.

Mr. Scott is well known in the Vineyard community, where he serves on the Coast Guard Auxiliary and board for the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby and the Scottish Society of Martha’s Vineyard, among others.

“I’m super proud of the trust and where it is,” he said. “The finances are super sound, the properties are really great.

“I want to leave the trust in the best possible hands, it’s a good time.”