In the US, preservation and disability access laws are complicated as all hell but there are plenty of ways to skirt them.
At a national level the following laws apply:
The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 states that if you're using federal funds to build or alter a building it must be accessible and buildings owned by the federal government must be made accessible as determined by the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards. However, there are provisions for historic buildings that would be destroyed by full access. So like a colonial building administered by the national park service doesn't have to be accessible because you would have to completely gut it in order to bring it up to UFAS.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 extended that to anyone who is receiving federal funding whether or not that is going towards construction or alteration, but also made provisions where you do not have to meet UFAS if you can provide an alternative. This is kinda where we fell into because we do get some federal funding. We argued that we would move activities off-site to someplace accessible or teleconference with our clients without providing a lesser quality of services and therefore there was no reason it was absolutely necessary that a disabled person access our building.
The big one is the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 which says that all historic buildings that are open to the public whether or not they have federal funding have to be, within reason, as accessible as non-historic buildings. But that "within reason" is really vague and you can argue pretty easily that the building's historic fabric would be destroyed if you made it fully ADA compliant. In these cases, you have to have a consultation with local preservation and disability officials, usually the State Historic Preservation Office and the Office of Disability Services, to come up with solutions and alternatives. This can include a store that offers home delivery/online shopping, an office that will Skype you in if you need to meet with them, etc.
On top of these is a patchwork of state and municipal laws. It's a giant clusterfuck of a headache. For example, where my parents live their municipal law almost forced them to install hand rails on their sweeping front entrance of their private residence because of accessibility issues for the mail carrier. The town was worried because he would have to go up the front steps to reach their mail box or leave a package and that's dangerous without a hand rail. They had to argue that since there's no railing around their porch at all and it wraps around two sides of the house, he could just place the mail and packages on it without having to go near the stairs.
I'd be willing to bet what happened in your case was your building was cleared by ADA compliance because it was too historic to make fully accessible without tearing it down, but then some dumb state or municipal law required a ramp anyway, probably when the entrance was being repaired or replaced. You know, so people in wheelchairs can get up to your front door and be disappointed!
The problem is that the internet weakened things like the ADA. If I can skype in someone from Dubai why do I have to build a ramp so your ass can get in here? If you can order this stuff on my website is it really necessary for you to get into my building? At the same time the internet empowered a bunch of perfectly able-bodied or mildly achy people to buy wheelchairs and identify as disabled and then bellow that THE FUTURE IS ACCESSIBLE!!!! And yes, some of the people who are saying "it would be really nice if I could get into that historic house museum" are actually disabled but the loud ones are the Nina Jeans of the world.
One last OT before I shut the fuck up and move on but I recently went on a tour of historic houses that included interior access to some that were private residences, all arranged by a historic preservation group I belong to. There was a young woman with a service dog there, n/s as to whether it was a real one (although she did seem to have some significant issues) but it behaved super well and didn't ever look stressed, so at the very least it was trained for public access appropriately. At every single house that had interior access this woman asked the owner "would you prefer if the dog stays outside?" and if the owner said yes, she had the person she was traveling with FaceTime the interior portion of the tour for her. I was really worried she was going to be one of those MUH SPOONIE DISABILITY types but nope. She found a workaround. Like a normal person who finds a barrier in this age where you can send information across the internet in real time.
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