HIGHLIGHTS of “Enid Sales Affected Lives, Not Just Buildings”

“Enid never had any problem telling people off if that’s what was needed to get it done. She told the city off; she told mayors off; she told me off. She’d throw anyone necessary under the bus to get the job done.”
Brian Congleton, Carmel-by-the-Sea Architect & Friend

"It’s the distillation of will. When she believes strongly in something, she’s like the point of the chisel.”
James Bryant, Alliance of Monterey Area Presservationists (AMAP) Board of Directors Member, Past AMAP President & Friend

“She had magnetism, a way of making you want to be on the in with her. She had a sort of wry sense of humor; an intellectual sense of humor. She generated enthusiasm.”
Barbara Thompson, Friend & Sister-In-Law

• Enid Thompson Sales, died September 17, 2008 at 87 years old.

• Worked with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, saved many Victorian homes in the mid-1960s, preserving more than 350 homes.

• Activities ranged from co-founding Allied Potters, a pottery studio; operating a small film studio in San Francisco; promoting the career of dancer Iris Mabry; and growing Pinot Noir and Zinfandel grapes in Healdsburg.

• “Biggest claim to fame,” the first woman in California to get a general contractor’s license; designed and built homes, additions and remodels.

• Married noted jazz critic Grover Sales, later divorced; survived by a daughter, Rachel Lopez.

• Grew up in a Utah mining family, granddaughter of Salt Lake’s first non-Mormon mayor, and Berkeley, CA.

• Twenty year ago, settled in Carmel; founded the Monterey Peninsula’s preservation movement; awarded the California Preservation Foundation’s Preservationist of the Year; organized the Carmel Preservation Foundation; saved the First Murphy House, Door House and was responsible for placing the Sunset Center on the National Register of Historic places

• Last major success, helping to restore the Marsh Building in Monterey, a landmark Asian antiquities showroom which reopened in 2008 as Orientations at the Marsh.

(Sources: Enid Sales Affected Lives, Not Just Buildings, DAVE WEINSTEIN, AMAP MEMBER, Preservation NOW!, Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists, Winter/Spring 2008-09 and Enid Sales affected lives, not just buildings, Dave Weinstein, Special to The Chronicle, Wednesday, November 12, 2008)

ADDENDUM:
Civic leader Sales dies
Had dogged determination to preserve history
By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 09/19/2008 01:37:25 AM