As people who work to save historic places, we’re no strangers to loss. Most preservation groups wouldn’t exist without it. Their origin stories teem with last straws: the loss of an icon or string of demolitions that drove concerned citizens to organize.

Beyond calls for urgent action, the wrecking ball (or threat thereof) appears prominently in donor appeals. “Without your support, this will happen again and again.”

My recent work on a self-guided tour (“trail”) for Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA) expanded my thinking about how we talk about lost landmarks, particularly in relation to those that still stand.

Called Lost and Found, the trail pairs five historic homes that were demolished with ones that exist today. Each pair has something in common, like the architect, style, or purpose.

One pair was designed by early modernist Irving Gill: the Dodge House (1916, demolished 1970) and the Miltimore House (1911). The latter went on the market in 2018 for the first time in 66 years.

A pioneer in the marketing and sale of architectural homes, Crosby Doe featured the Miltimore House in his quarterly magazine. In his editor’s note,* he wrote,

“Experiencing the magic of the Miltimore House has only reconfirmed my feelings about the Dodge House—and the senselessness of its loss.”

— Crosby Doe

Forgive me if I’m mastering the obvious, but this connection makes the Miltimore House even more important. Its very existence conveys what might have been had the Dodge House survived.

The feature story* on Miltimore briefly mentions Dodge, but I think this tension has more to offer: an interplay between positive and negative space, like a figure-ground image.

Likewise, the trail features two homes designed by my favorite architect, R.M. Schindler. Without getting too wonky, it turns out these two homes—the Packard House (razed in 2001) and the Van Dekker House (1940) have very specific features in common, from design principles to roofing material.

Juxtaposing lost and saved (or “saved for now”) is hardly new. In 2007, when I was at the Los Angeles Conservancy, we ended our fight in one of the city’s greatest preservation losses, the Ambassador Hotel, while celebrating the capstone project for one of our greatest wins, the former Cathedral of St. Vibiana.

Our year-end appeal featured images of the two side by side—a common technique made more dramatic, perhaps, through the sheer magnitude of these particular issues.

In 2017, I worked with Photo Friends of the Los Angeles Public Library on an exhibit and book, L.A. Landmarks: Lost and Almost Lost. We’d first considered focusing solely on lost landmarks, but it was important to me to show the other side of the story: the wins. What it takes to save threatened places and why we do it. We ended up with a mix of sites based on those in the library’s photo collection.

Yet the inherent connections between these homes by Gill and Schindler allow for a different type of storytelling, a more powerful way to show both what’s at stake and what’s possible. Existing landmarks can give shape to the negative space of those we’ve lost.

Even without as direct a connection, we can still draw meaningful parallels. Visitors to the Oakridge estate in Northridge (Paul R. Williams, attributed; c. 1936) learn it was built for Barbara Stanwyck as one of many celebrity retreats in the San Fernando Valley.

Do they also learn about the vast majority of those estates that no longer exist, including the spectacular Von Sternberg House (Richard Neutra, 1935-1972)? Do they learn why Oakridge survived while the others didn’t? (I’ve asked them and will update this if/when I hear back.) What a great opportunity to convey the value and vulnerability of historic places.

I want to know how others have made these types of connections. Do you know of any examples? If so, please share them below. Thanks!

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