Don’t remuddle your house. And don’t damage your house irretrievably. Get a good Designer in to help you before you dress gramma in a mini skirt and spike heels.

Will the skylights be visible from the front yard? Or only visible from the side or back yard? Do you have restrictions on changes to historic homes in your area?

By the way, skylights are not irreversible. A new buyer could take them out and put a new roof over the space.

Skylights are hardly modern, I,ve seen them in turn of the century buildings. You must verify if one is even possible, given your conditions, do you get snow, for ex? What is between the kitchen and the roof? Make sure you’ve got someone who really knows what they are doing. If they open, they are great for air circulation as well.

Something like this?

https://www.period-homes.com/projects/greek-revival-house

The ex. above is a good mix of old and new. If the home is old enough, fitted kitchens and indoor bathrooms would hardly be included if one wanted to 100 per cent authentic in some cases. And skylights in older buildings were a way to light a space naturally without using electric or even gas lighting.

I think that if done correctly, a skylight would look perfectly lovely in any kind of space. however, consider the placement. I have five skylights. three of them are great. two of them were placed too close to a structure that causes them to be in a big shadow for literally half the year. during that time, the light that comes in is very blue toned and depressing. sometimes more light is not necessarily better. my recommendation is to get a lighting architect help advise on the best placement of those skylights, what size to get, what style of casing, etc.

a note on solatubes: in my opinion, they just look like you put a 4000 K bulb in a flush mount ceiling light. I'd rather have a window cut in my ceiling than have something that just looks like I left the lights on all day.

At the risk of being called a “remuddeler” I would have one put in. I HATE dark houses, especially kitchens, & whether or not a house is “historic” wouldn’t deter me. You have to live there & make it work for you. I agree that one can go too far on altering historic homes but I don’t see askylight doing that. Btw, they weren’t just popular in the 80’s . They’ve been around a long time.

I wouldn't worry about putting a skylight in a historic building, even a very old, historic building.

here are some old school beautiful designs.

also if you posted pics of your kitchen, we could help you with other ideas. is the room small? would knocking down a wall let any more light in from another room?

I second the solar tube suggestion. In my prior house, it looked like a rather inconspicuous flush mount light fixture and provided tons of light.

Following

The kitchen was done in the in the 80's, bumped out & has a slider. Do what you want!!

I'm thinking transom windows above doors might help, but then you'd have to muddle any antique or vintage doors you may have. That is if you any doors into your kitchen.

1 - What is the orientation of your kitchen and its windows, especially in the addition? (faces north, faces southeast, etc)

2 - What is the pitch of the roof that you would be piercing?

3 - What is your local climate? (lots of snow, occasional heavy wet snow, torrential rain in summer, dry as a bone)

4 - What surrounding obstacles are there that might block light from a skylight? (Tall buildings, tall evergreens, tall spreading deciduous trees)

We live in a climate with four seasons and have a lot of gray days. The one thing that I am grateful for is that the back of my house gets the beautiful morning light. I love walking into a bright kitchen in the morning and that is one reason why I have always had white cabinets as well. Our house is a Georgian and we have four skylights, and in two of those places they make a huge difference in lighting the space. I personally wouldn't hesitate to do it, especially in a spot where you likely spend a lot of time. Once it is in, I do not think that you will even think about it being up there. Years ago a friend told me when I was struggling over picking just the right fixture for a bath vanity that no one would even notice what it looked like. They just wanted to hit a switch and have the light come on.

Union station in Washington DC, built in 1907 has hundreds of skylights. They were not an 80's thing, they are timeless. They make the interior so much more pleasant. Photo is taken in 1915 from and obtained from Wikipedia