Antiques

I have commented a few times on the appropriateness of anachronistic surroundings and meeting places for time travelers:

Anachronisms
The Bookshop
Out Of The Past

Similarly, SM Stirling tells us that Nantucket was "antique-happy" (On The Oceans Of Eternity, p. 42) even before it time traveled. The meeting room has:

brass andirons;
an oval mahogany table;
sideboy;
armoire;
mirrors;
flowered Victorian wallpaper;
pictures of whaling ships;
souvenirs like a shark-toothed wooden sword and an Iberian idol;
just one post-Event painting.

It must be easier to accept that you have traveled into the past when you are already surrounded by it.