L.A. Conservancy: Force to Be Reckoned With

A decade ago, the 1929 Art Deco architectural treasure at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, known for its Wiltern Theatre, was in trouble.

Its owner, Franklin Life Insurance Co., had been advised that the only way to sell the property was to raze the Pellissier Building housing the theater--that the land was far more valuable than the old, odd, green building.

But a neophyte organization called the Los Angeles Conservancy objected.

“It was the bulldozer at the door,” recalled associate director Gregg Davidson. “They . . . got Councilman (John) Ferraro to come out and stopped the demolition.”

The group won acceptance for the 2,344-seat auditorium on the National Register of Historic Places, which, along with the building’s designation as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 118, bought time--nearly a year.

In that grace period, the conservancy found a buyer--Ratkovich, Bowers & Perez Inc.--which would not only buy the building, but also renovate it for offices and a performing arts theater.

Mission accomplished.

Preserving the Wiltern was the first major success of the group that developers and city officials now say is one of the most effective organizations of its kind.

Only 11 years old, the Los Angeles Conservancy has matured from a small band of activists making an eleventh-hour stand to save the Brown Derby “hat” or Frank Lloyd Wright’s Stover House to a powerful 5,000-member organization that is respected and called upon for advice by government planners and private developers.

“With the clout of public approval and a high-profile roster behind it,” California Business stated earlier this year, “the Los Angeles Conservancy is a force to be reckoned with.”

And over the last few years, the conservancy has steadily recorded other successes.

Last year, motivated in part by a conservancy lawsuit against the Community Redevelopment Agency, the City Council adopted a density ordinance, replacing a confusing dual system with a single method of transferring density rights.

The new law will regulate density downtown by controlling the transfer of “floor area ratio”--essentially, space not used by a low-rise building is transferred to a taller development next door. The money the taller building pays for the right to have more space can be used to refurbish the older structure.

Observers say the conservancy’s suit, which never went to trial, prompted the city Planning Department and the CRA to hammer out the compromise system adopted by the council, which is now considering final plans for implementation.

The preservationists’ suit objected to a practice of transferring density rights of sites where historic buildings might be razed for new development.

“A very important part of the settlement for us was that the CRA would discourage the transfer of floor area to sites where historic buildings had been demolished,” said attorney Howard Heitner, chairman of the conservancy’s legal committee.

“One of our big concerns is where someone tears down a historic building, then puts up a new skyscraper.”

Born at a 1978 meeting of citizens in the 1927 Oviatt Building downtown, the Los Angeles Conservancy is the largest preservation group in the West and serves as a resource and coordinator for other groups.

“In recent years the conservancy has played a vital role in the network of neighborhood groups,” said Christy Johnson McAvoy, president of the California Preservation Foundation.

“Usually, preservation operates on three levels--national, state and neighborhoods. Here we have a fourth, regional, because of the conservancy, which is a clearinghouse for experts and information (with) technical assistance for smaller organizations.”

Kathryn Burns, San Francisco-based regional director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, rated the conservancy one of the top four organizations in her nine-state area.

The conservancy has managed to avoid lawsuits and major conflict with other preservationists and slow-growth groups as well as developers by talking, rather than shouting, supporters say, and by demonstrating how historic buildings can be incorporated into future development economically.

The conservancy provides the slow-growth voice for downtown, a district with few residential areas, which is dominated by commercial interests committed to development.

“They are a real player in the downtown development issues,” said Claire Bogaard, executive director of the preservation group Pasadena Heritage.

Jay Rounds, the conservancy’s 44-year-old executive director who formerly was a curator at the Museum of Natural History, said his organization pursues a three-front mission--action, assistance and awareness.

On the action front, in addition to launching the suit that led to the density ordinance, the group has recently:

Sued the Los Angeles Unified School District to keep it from razing the historic Ambassador Hotel in order to build a high school. The suit is pending.

Organized a march protesting an extension of the Long Beach Freeway in South Pasadena. Hundreds participated.

In its assistance role, the conservancy has:

Successfully recommended to the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission more than 70 buildings, and to the National Register of Historic Places, more than 21 buildings for landmark designation.

Helped developers find economic ways, such as tax credits, to preserve important historic facades or portions of buildings.

Contracted with the CRA and city Planning Department to do a comprehensive survey of downtown historic buildings, identifying all structures more than 50 years old and determining their cultural significance.

To increase awareness, the conservancy sponsors tours of historic areas and homes for modest fees.

“We do a few hundred tours every year,” Rounds said. “That is a way of building the constituency for preservation.”

The conservancy’s growing power has been attributed partially to its increasing skill and willingness to work with other citizens groups, developers and government planners.

Also fueling the group’s power are the people who make up the conservancy and the group’s sheer numbers.

“We are not a group of crazies here,” said Rounds as he sat in his office in the renovated 1928-vintage, former Title Insurance Building at 433 S. Spring St. “We understand that buildings have to be functional. We know that we have to find ways to make preservation good business.”

The conservancy’s 21-member board of directors includes Robert Stelzl, a real estate developer; investor John Macon of First Interstate Bank of California; Heitner and other lawyers, as well as architects, designers and community volunteers.

Working closely with Rounds, Davidson and the seven paid staff members, is the board’s five-member executive committee.

The committee consists of Margaret Bach, the conservancy’s founding president who works with KCET and is the producer of the Los Angeles History Project; Robert S. Harris, dean of the USC School of Architecture; Brenda Levin, of Levin & Associates architects, which restored the Wiltern and is now renovating Grand Central Market; Jorge Sanchez, of Villa Coronado Construction, who came to the board through his work chairing the conservancy’s 400-member volunteer group, and Sally S. Stewart, a volunteer fund-raiser who organized the conservancy’s Wiltern-opening benefit and is vice chairman of KCET’s board of directors.

Having such broad-based input helps the conservancy get along with the very groups that might be considered its enemies--developers and planners.

Diana Price, vice president of marketing for Maguire-Thomas Partners, which developed the Wells Fargo Center and many other major downtown projects, said her firm welcomes participation by the conservancy.

“There will always be tugs of war between developers and preservationists,” she said. “But responsible corporate citizens are always going to admire them (the conservancy).

“They are not ‘no-growth,’ ” she said. “They encourage thoughtful, responsible development.”

Rounds and Davidson estimate that the downtown Central Business District has about 1,700 buildings more than 50 years old. The city of Los Angeles has 332,000, and Los Angeles County has perhaps half a million.

“Not all of them,” Rounds is quick to point out, “are worth preserving.”

That approach has helped win kudos for the conservancy from experts such as John Spalding, director of planning and urban design for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“We recognize that they have the capacity to supplement our staff work here,” Spalding said, “and we utilize that.”

Although the conservancy is now attracting a few small grants and corporate or CRA donations, most of its half-million-dollar annual budget is funded by fees from conservancy-sponsored events and the $25 dues of its 5,000 members--a five-fold membership increase in the last five years.

The group’s success in saving the Wiltern attracted its first wave of new members, Davidson said.

“Before that, a lot of people didn’t know we were there or what we did,” he said. “Once people knew the conservancy existed, they wanted to be members.”

The benefit held to mark the reopening of the Wiltern in 1985 netted the group several hundred new members. A second benefit later that year brought in 500 more.

The group’s first direct-mail membership drive in 1986 pushed the roster from the hundreds into the thousands. And the group continues to grow.

“Preservation serves as an antidote to that sense of loss of community and rootlessness that is so prevalent in Los Angeles,” Rounds said.

He described conservancy members as two types--nostalgic older residents, perhaps natives, who remember Los Angeles as it was years ago and want to preserve buildings or things that have personal meaning to them, and young newcomers.

“For the younger ones,” he said, “the conservancy becomes an avenue to develop a sense of community, to put down roots and find a way to see something with a past that goes back beyond yesterday.”

“A lot of people do think of Los Angeles as Tomorrowland, but we are also Frontierland,” Davidson said. “I like to think of Los Angeles as a salad bowl. You don’t pulverize the lettuce when you put it into the salad. And you don’t raze the historic buildings when you develop the futuristic city.”

Rounds is proud of what the conservancy has accomplished in its brief 11 years.

“I think the organization is playing a very significant role in helping to determine what Los Angeles is going to be like in the future,” Rounds said. “We want the best of the past to be part of the future of this city.”