"Preservation Sage:" Enid T. Sales

To read a lively and informative interview with the California Preservation Foundation “2006 Preservationist of the Year,” Enid T. Sales, click on the title above.

The interview, “Conversations with a Preservation Sage: Enid T. Sales,” appears in Western Preservation News, August/September 2006, pages 3-5. (http://www.nationaltrust.org/western/newsletters/wro-0806.pdf)

Highlights include:

“That award is CPF’s most prestigious and honors lifetime achievement and exceptional contributions of statewide importance in the field of historic preservation.”

“Enid Sales is a model of pluck, energy, and indomitable spirit. In a career spanning some 43 years of preservation activity, Enid has worked her way through the historic preservation menu, from soup to nuts.”

“We managed to save some 350 buildings, most of which had been slated for clearance. I think the most impressive thing we ever did was move 13 two-story Victorians from one neighborhood to another in the middle of the night to form part of a new neighborhood community.”

“I'm a preservationist.”

“When I got to Carmel in 1986, Clint Eastwood had just been elected Mayor and the first thing he wanted to do was tear down "that old heap" – The Flander’s Mansion! I couldn't believe it. Kent Seavy helped me put it on the National Register, which we could do because the City owned the building so that meant that, as taxpayers, we did too…The survey took from 1989 until 1996 to complete: by which point we’d surveyed some 2,000 buildings, 400 of which we felt were significant on the local level, and we had thirty volunteers, all of them still active.”

“Well, ultimately [in Carmel] I ran into something I had never quite come face to face with before: militant politics! It was largely because of Silicon Valley and the homecoming of a Carmel girl who had spent some thirty years with the CIA who knew how to become Mayor, and did [Sue McCloud, Carmel Mayor 2000 - present].”

“We have been trying to save this fragile community, but unfortunately we really haven't succeeded...Our main street is still here so now we would like to try to save it.”

“AMAP or The Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists is an innovative organization and potentially one of the most effective preservation methods those of us who live in this very diverse Peninsula have ever experienced.”

“It is difficult to pinpoint the origin of threats to preservation, but threats certainly seem to be building in California.”

NOTE: For information on the Carmel Preservation Foundation and Enid Sales, Director of the Carmel Preservation Foundation, go to http://www.geocities.com/carmelpreservation/