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SOHO President's Message
By David Goldberg
May/June 2019
 David Goldberg helps prep and repair walls during Santa Ysabel Store restoration and clean-up days, 2012. |
May is always one of the nicest months in San Diego. The weather has started warming up after the cool and occasionally brisk winter. Parks, beaches, and other public attractions are not overly crowded since the summer tourist season is not yet here. It is one of the greenest months of the year, and the jacaranda trees that line many of our streets are blooming at their spectacular best. Plus, May is National Preservation Month!
One of SOHO's contributions to National Preservation Month is our nearly four-decade-old People In Preservation Awards (PIP), which honors and publicizes outstanding achievements in local historic preservation. The awards ceremony takes place in the beautiful, historic Marston House gardens. It is an opportunity to learn about and meet owners, architects, landscape architects, contractors, craftspeople, and stakeholders involved with some of the best and most significant historic preservation projects in San Diego County.
The stories behind these projects are often fascinating, and the solutions reached to overcome the inevitable challenges that crop up during a restoration project can be quite ingenious and enlightening. A beautiful setting, tasty hors d'oeuvres, interesting people and subject matter—life doesn't get much better than this! Be sure to get your tickets well in advance as PIP always sells out. Space is limited and no tickets are sold at the door. Buy tickets HERE.
Another SOHO program I strongly suggest you attend are the Terrace Talks, now in their second year. Also located at the historic Marston House, Terrace Talks typically consist of two or three panelists and a moderator. At the most recent Terrace Talk, on April 6, historians and preservationists discussed "Protecting the People's Park for Over a Century: Generations of San Diegans Fighting to Preserve Balboa Park." Their comments along with questions from the audience provided an intriguing, occasionally amusing, but often sobering overview of the challenges (read "threats") to Balboa Park over the last century and a half.
The next Terrace Talk, "Why Old Places Matter," will be held on May 11. This subject gets to the heart of SOHO's mission and is based on a new book of the same name. Terrace Talks have limited seating and frequently sell out. Buy tickets HERE.
Complementing these in-town programs would be a refreshing trip to San Diego's historic backcountry, with stops at the SOHO owned and operated Santa Ysabel Store (1884), and the nearby Warner-Carrillo Ranch House (1857). The Santa Ysabel Store is an iconic landmark familiar to anyone who has ever made the trip to Julian from San Diego and parts north. Not far is the adobe Warner-Carrillo Ranch House, operated by SOHO for the Vista Irrigation District, which once served as a Butterfield Stage stop and tells the story of the emigrant trail and ranching history of the area. Time permitting, the day could be filled out with a visit to Borrego Springs, where you'll find some of the best mid-century architecture in San Diego County.
A trip to the San Diego backcountry is educational, invigorating, budget- and family- friendly (much less costly than a day at an amusement park). It's also a great activity for out-of-town—as well as in-town—visitors who may not fully realize there's much more to San Diego than coastal bluffs and beaches.
One of my favorite expressions—"the more things change, the more they stay the same"—seems especially apropos now that the Horton Plaza shopping mall is back in the news for possible redevelopment. When this enormous project was being planned and developed in the late 1970s and early '80s, SOHO's concern was the impact it would have on historic buildings in the downtown core, and we did lose important structures. Little did anyone suspect that nearly forty years later the project itself would be considered potentially historic. SOHO has not taken a formal position on the historic significance of the Horton Plaza shopping mall, but has allocated funds to help cover the cost of a historic report. More to come in future issues of Our Heritage eNews.
Hope to see you around our beautiful and historic San Diego, from the mountains and desert to the sea! Happy National Preservation Month, everybody!
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