Towns preservation work highly regarded

The demolition of historic homes in recent years have made headlines, with Four Winds, the Bermuda-style Maurice Fatio-designed home on Ocean Boulevard, and the Modern-style Alfred Browning Parker house on Wells Road among the structures that have been destroyed.

However, the towns preservation program has had far more successes than failures and is admired by preservationists throughout the state, Palm Beach architect Gene Pandula said Thursday.

Pandula, a former longtime chairman of the towns Landmarks Preservation Commission, spoke about the program during the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beachs ninth annual Historic Properties Workshop.

In 1977, while still in graduate school, Pandula became involved in Palm Beachs budding preservation movement.

A professor had referred him to the late Barbara Hoffstot, who crafted the towns landmarks preservation ordinance in 1978 and authored Landmark Architecture of Palm Beach. While some of the properties Hoffstot, Pandula and others wanted to save have been demolished, the landmarks program has protected 292 historic properties to date.

Today really should be a day of celebration, Pandula said. It is a highly, highly regarded program in the State of Florida. People with SHPO (the state historic preservation office) often look to us for all sorts of guidance. And what the town has been able to accomplish, for such a small community, is truly remarkable.

In the early 1980s, many structures worthy of landmark protection were in a state of disrepair, Pandula said. The preservation movement showed property owners the value of restoring those architectural gems, he said.

The renovation of The Palm Beach Biltmore condominium in the late 1970s and early 1980s, for example, was a catalyst for positive change in its neighborhood, Pandula said. (The building, at 150 Bradley Place, had opened in 1926 as the Alba Hotel.) Owners of other properties in the area soon redeveloped their parcels or restored architecture worthy of preservation, he said.

This was a hugely important project for the town given that it anchored the street. Somebody bit off a big amount of work in a time when people wanted to live in new buildings, Pandula said.

A turning point

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Towns preservation work highly regarded