TRURO — A 220-year-old house peeks out from behind a wall of foliage on land wedged between Castle and Truro Center roads. The house at 3 Castle Road is a piece of the town’s history: a one-and-a-half-story Federal-style Cape built in 1805. The side ell on it served as the post office for Truro Center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The current owner is looking to demolish the 1,526-square-foot house and build a new one measuring 2,104 square feet, according to plans submitted to the town.

Because the house is more than 75 years old, the proposed demolition must undergo a review by the historical commission, which will hold a hearing on June 10 to decide whether it will impose a delay of up to 12 months on the demolition based on the property’s historical, architectural, or cultural significance to the town. The commission plans to conduct a pre-hearing site inspection on June 7.

The owner told the commission the new house she wants to build when this one is gone will be designed “in a similar style” as the historic one. She is limiting the inspection to the exterior, according to vice chair Chuck Steinman. The commission, he said, is usually afforded an interior look as well.

Ming Felicity Beaver is listed on the assessor’s records as the owner with a London, England address. The property has been in her family since 1938, when it was purchased by Peggy Day, according to Norman Pope, a local historian and historical society member. Day passed the house to her daughter Wilhelmine in 1953, who in turn passed it to her three children. Beaver’s two siblings sold their shares to her in 2021, making her the sole owner.

According to the historic inventory sheet in the Mass. Historical Commission’s database, called MACRIS, the house’s earliest known owner was Samuel Paine, born in 1824 and “one of the Longnook area Paines.” Paine was a farmer and kept the Truro Center post office in the ell of the house “for many years,” according to the inventory.

Pope offered further details: Paine, he said, was postmaster of the Truro Center Post Office, which continued to operate in the building under various postmasters until 1938.

The house stands among several other Federal-style Capes built in the early 1800s. It is across the street from the Cobb Memorial Library, an Arts & Crafts design built there in 1912 that now houses the Truro Historical Society’s Cobb Archive.

According to data released by the Cape Cod Commission last month, Truro’s historic properties are some of the least protected in Barnstable County. The town has a total of 694 buildings, burial grounds, and other historic structures dating from pre-1700 to 1950, based on its inventories. Of that total, 669 have no protections to help preserve them. In other words, less than 4 percent of the properties have some kind of safeguard.

A handful of these historic houses are listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places along with a cluster that compose the Truro Highlands Historic District. The First Congregational Parish Historic District, also on the National Register, includes Truro’s first church and surrounding cemeteries.

The house at 3 Castle Road is not on the National Register, but the designation is simply honorary in any case and does not in itself protect properties from demolition.

Massachusetts state law does, however, require that proposals for major changes to or demolition of structures listed on the National Register undergo a review by the Cape Cod Commission, which has the authority to deny such proposals.

Sarah Korjeff, the Cape Cod Commission’s historic preservation specialist, said it may be time for some towns on Cape Cod to consider beefing up their regulations.

“Some towns are extending their demolition delay periods, and I think that’s a great step,” she said. “But we all know that demolition delay bylaws can’t prohibit demolition.” In many cases, a property owner simply waits for the delay period to expire.

Increased interest in building larger homes can lead to demolition of a town’s historic buildings, Korjeff said. “Towns really need to look into their zoning regulations and what they’re allowing and consider whether that isn’t acting as an incentive, sometimes, to demolish a historic structure,” she said.

Korjeff also suggested that towns consider looking into creating single-property historic districts. “It’s something that’s happening off Cape but hasn’t really taken hold yet in our region,” she said.

The last time the Truro Historical Commission considered a proposal to demolish buildings more than 75 years old was last October, when members voted not to impose a demolition delay for the seven cottages on the Walsh property estimated by Weston and Sampson, consultants to the town, to have been built between 1900 and the 1940s.

The historical commission’s public hearing on 3 Castle Road will be conducted online beginning at 5 p.m on June 10.