California’s historic preservation community will gather in Santa Monica
for four days, Sunday to Wednesday, May 15 to18, for the 2011 California
Preservation Conference, “Preservation on the Edge,” held by the California
Preservation Foundation.

National Trust President Stephanie Meeks will be the keynote speaker
at the conference’s Plenary Session on Monday night, May 16.

Other highlights include: “The Power of Partnerships, Place, and Preservation,” a workshop at the Annenberg Beach House. Wednesday, May 18, 9:00 a.m. 5 p.m., $65; “Radical Preservation: An Unorthodox Approach Might be the Only Answer,” Luncheon at the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club, Monday, May 16, 12:15 -1:45 p.m., $40; “The Future of Preservation, an Emerging Professionals Roundtable” at the Fairmont Miramar, Sunday, May 15, 4:30 – 5:45 p.m. Free (registration requested); “They Shoot Movies, Don’t They? Identifying, Interpreting and Preserving Mythic Movie Landscapes of the Santa Monica Mountains,” Sunday, May 15, 9:00 to 5:00 p.m. $65.

“The Power of Partnerships, Place, and Preservation.” The Annenberg Community Beach House is a case study in thinking beyond traditional preservation models. Originally constructed in the 1920s, Marion Davies’ beachfront estate, which had 118 rooms and 55 bathrooms, was reduced by time and circumstance to remnants of itself when the Annenberg Foundation and the City of Santa Monica undertook its resurrection as a public beach club and cultural center. The project encompassed historic restoration, adaptive reuse, new construction, sustainability strategies, and a broad vision of Santa Monica’s coastal cultural landscape.

The Beach House is anchored by two significant Davies estate landmarks designed by the nation’s leading woman architect of the 1920s, Julia Morgan, the guesthouse and swimming pool. They have been meticulously restored and augmented by some contemporary structures. A LEED Gold rated complex, it has received, among other things, a CPF Preservation Design Award.

The daylong workshop will feature a diverse roster of speakers who will use the Beach House as a case study to explore a number of themes including creating consensus with a broad range of stakeholders, relating sites to its cultural context, innovative approaches to integrating preservation and new construction, and material conservation strategies for repairing, restoring, and rehabilitating the site’s historic features.

“Radical Preservation: An Unorthodox Approach Might be the Only Answer.” Ann Gray, Publisher of Balcony Media, will moderate a panel discussion with John Ruble of Moore Ruble Yudell, Craig Hodgetts of Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture, and Frank Matero, Professor at University of Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Program on their personal experiences and the world view on what heritage conservation means today and in the future.

“The Future of Preservation, an Emerging Professionals Roundtable at the Fairmont Miramar.” Experts in a wide variety of preservation fields will take part in informal, roundtable discussions on the employment trends and opportunities in the expanding field of preservation.

“They Shoot Movies, Don’t They? Identifying, Interpreting and Preserving Mythic Movie Landscapes of the Santa Monica Mountains.” A day-long tour in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area focusing on the area’s movie history to learn how Hollywood set design wizardry and filming techniques transformed recognizable Southern California scenery into exotic locales. Morning activities will begin with a panel discussion at King Gillette Ranch, featuring noted movie historians Juliana Delgado, Harry Medved, Brian Rooney, and others. After lunch, there will be short and long docent-led hikes to movie sets in Malibu Creek State Park, followed by a visit to the park headquarters, the “Dream House” in “Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House.” The day will end with a tour of the Paramount Ranch Western Movie set, used for TV and movie filming from 1920s to the present.
Founded in 1977, the California Preservation Foundation is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of California’s diverse cultural and architectural heritage. With over 1,500 members, it is the state’s leading voice for historic preservation, as well as its most valuable source for preservation-related assistance. The Foundation is governed by a Board of Trustees and is proud to partner with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Californians for Preservation Action.
The Santa Monica Conservancy is pleased to bring this statewide conference to Santa Monica, and thanks the many local partnering organizations, sponsors and volunteers who have made this possible.

Some tours are already sold out. To receive the conference brochure and registration form, call the Foundation at 415 495 0265 or email it at californiapreservation.org

Santa Monica Conservancy, PO BOX 653, Santa Monica, CA 90406, Phone
Number (310 496 3146). Email: info@smconservancy.org