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An Anniversary Message from SOHO's Executive Director
January/February 2019
 Photo by Sandé Lollis |
SOHO is 50 years old!
This is a major milestone in our history. Throughout 2019, we'll be celebrating SOHO's many preservation victories and all that this organization has accomplished over five decades of community service.
The protection of San Diego County's historic architecture, places, and cultural environment over the past 50 years has been the core of SOHO's work. This is a long-term commitment that we take on with the long view, for the benefit of future generations. SOHO has always responded to the challenges of the time, while anticipating others to come. We believe our founders would be proud of what and where we are today.
I invite you to discover or refresh your knowledge of SOHO's fabled history by visiting our website at your leisure. There you'll find the compelling story of our first 40 years, as told primarily by two SOHO leaders. The eminent, late historian Kathleen Flanigan chronicled the first two decades, and Dan Soderberg created the Governor's Preservation Award-winning video, Four Decades of Historic Preservation in San Diego County. Watch a 20-minute version of it HERE.
A small band of energetic, diverse, and impassioned volunteers who cared deeply about San Diego's Victorian architecture started SOHO in 1969. When the elaborate, architecturally and culturally important Sherman-Gilbert House, built in 1887, was threatened with demolition, they successfully set out to save it, and in doing so, Heritage Park was born. They also raised awareness of the value, rarity, and beauty of San Diego's Victorian buildings as fast as they could by organizing imaginative events and tours that attracted public support and media coverage. Otherwise, they correctly feared, uninformed homeowners, developers, and city planners would soon wipe out a significant, rich layer of our heritage. SOHO members soon after helped save the magnificent, Queen Anne-style Villa Montezuma in Sherman Heights which had been home to an internationally renowned and locally beloved pianist and spiritualist.
Early members soon extended their preservation campaign to downtown office buildings and theaters in other architectural styles, many of which were vacant, deteriorating and obviously highly endangered. They saved Horton Plaza and its Irving Gill-designed fountain three times, first in 1970, and the Santa Fe Depot in 1972. The Gaslamp Quarter became one of SOHO's early proving grounds, and there is little doubt that historic preservation is the key to its revitalization and economic growth. Thirty years after the Gaslamp's renaissance, SOHO once again guided downtown renewal by initiating a precedent-setting, nationally acclaimed agreement to protect nine city blocks in the historic warehouse district.
Now, decades later, a multi-pronged strategy of advocacy, education, and a consistently strong and active board and membership is still a winning formula for SOHO. Waves of changing taste and urban renewal come and go, and with them, the evolution of the preservation movement itself. SOHO remains steadfast and focused in its mission to preserve and protect the historic architectural and cultural heritage of San Diego—its neighborhoods and community landmarks, cities and towns, bayfront and backcountry, cultural landscapes and parks. Through SOHO's crucial work, preservation has helped spur revitalization and reinvestment in neighborhoods once considered dangerous or neglected. They are now thriving and pulsing with residents, workers, and patrons of shops, galleries, and restaurants.
Today, SOHO furthers its educational mission by interpreting and sharing with the public such iconic historic properties as the Whaley House, Adobe Chapel, Warner-Carrillo Ranch House, Santa Ysabel Store, and the Marston House & Gardens. These sites help us to understand and appreciate the past, engage with the complex issues that define our present, and come together to imagine and create a better future.
SOHO is privileged to protect San Diego's historic buildings and places, and we remain as passionate and committed as our founding members were on January 1, 1969, when SOHO was born.
Please continue to support and stand with SOHO, as we follow in the founders' resounding footsteps and honor their remarkable legacy. On behalf of the SOHO board and staff, I extend heartfelt gratitude to all SOHO members, past and present, and invite those of you who are not yet members to join us in achieving many more preservation victories.
Bruce Coons
SOHO Executive Director
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