COLUMN ONE : Keeping a Grip on the Past : The historic preservation movement is fighting to retain its power. But it’s losing some key battles around the country.

In this elegant old city of graceful mansions in muted tones, Bud Hall’s House of Many Colors stands out like rap music at a Debussy concert.

You can almost hear the hot pink, lavender and blue paint that covers Hall’s nine-room Victorian home on Whitefield Square in the city’s historic district. And his 9-foot tall windows look even louder, 10 of them covered with paintings of women dressed in colors of the rainbow.

As expected in a city that prides itself on antebellum charm and architecture, a city that William Tecumseh Sherman spared after his March to the Sea because it was “too beautiful” to destroy, many Savannah preservationists look at Hall’s home and see red. City officials took him to court, arguing that his home is not in character with the rest of the historic neighborhood. But Hall argues that preservation laws clash with his rights.

Sitting in a room that he uses for his hair styling businesses, Hall said indignantly: “If I want to hang pictures of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Martin Luther King in my window, that’s my right. Our country was founded on property rights.”

In many ways, Hall’s house has come to symbolize increasingly worrisome issues surrounding the historic preservation movement. In Savannah, as in cities across the country, questions are being raised about whether the movement has become too powerful, too intrusive and whether preservation and progress are compatible--and affordable. The questions take on added weight as aging cities increasingly rely on historic districts to attract visitors and help fuel their service economies.

Across the nation, preservationists are battling to hold onto power they gained during the last several decades of heightened awareness of architectural treasures.

In Charleston, S.C., and San Francisco, preservationists have taken a beating as they tried to convince some victims of the recent hurricane and earthquake that, in repairing their damaged property, they should spend the extra money it takes to buy materials like those destroyed rather than purchasing newer, cheaper ones.

Pat Mellen of the Preservation Society of Charleston, said to be the nation’s oldest such organization (70 years old), said, “You have to explain to them that you can put an asphalt roof on,” instead of the more expensive metal, “but you’re going to lose it in 10 years. You’re also going to lose tourism” because the houses would not be attractive.

In South Pasadena, Calif., homeowners--backed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation--struggle against a freeway that would destroy dozens of historic houses. One angry homeowner called that prospect “cultural suicide.” The preservationists can lay claim to holding off the freeway for 20 years, but they have not been able to kill it. The state continues to press forward with new plans.

In Madison, Ga., preservationists sought to block the opening of a Hardee’s hamburger shop which would result in the razing of two historic homes in the quaint old east Georgia town. But they lost. The restaurant now sits just off the town’s main square, painted white, like many of the historic homes around it.

“It’s the only antebellum Hardee’s in the world,” said Don Stacy of the local chamber of commerce, adding that a Piggly Wiggly grocery store is located just across the street from Hardee’s. “I wouldn’t call it an antebellum Piggly Wiggly,” he said, “but it is a quality construction with a quality appearance.”

Influence Considerable

For many years, the preservation movement made great political headway. And its influence is still considerable, even dominating, in many communities.

The national trust has identified 11 areas nationwide that it calls “endangered,” including South Pasadena, St. Simons, Ga., and the historic district in Deadwood, S. D. “These places tell us who we were and who we are,” said National Trust President J. Jackson Walter. “They deserve our protection.”

But a backlash of sorts has been building, and nowhere is it more apparent than in Savannah, where a 2.2-square-mile historic district graced by live oak trees dripping Spanish moss boasts of some 1,100 historic buildings and 22 landscaped squares.

Savannah is among the nation’s oldest planned cities--James Oglethorpe laid it out in 1733--and possesses one of America’s largest urban historic areas designated as a landmark district by the U.S. Interior Department. Thus, the plight of its preservation Establishment could set a pattern for others nationwide.

“Savannah, along with other cities like Charleston, San Antonio and Annapolis that have been working to preserve their history, are the recognized and acknowledged exemplaries of historic preservation,” Walter said. “Were it ever to be the case when one of those cities changed direction sharply, we would, I am certain, be alarmed” that other preservation efforts might be thwarted.

“When the leaders fall, everybody else gets nervous.”

Sweeping Control

Preservation officials exercise broad control over how a building is modified and over whether one is built at all in this city of 150,000. An 11-member Historic Board of Review that includes architects, builders and historians must approve “any type of alteration that is visible from the public right of way,” said Beth Reiter, Savannah’s preservation officer.

The board is appointed by Mayor John Rousakis and the board of aldermen, serving three-year terms.

The following changes are among those requiring a “certificate of appropriateness” approved by the board and issued by the zoning commissioner:

--Demolition of a historic structure in the historic district.

--”Material change in the exterior appearance of” structures in the district.

--Moving a structure into, within or out of the district.

--Adding or altering awnings.

--”Material change” of existing walls, fences or sidewalks that are “subject to view from a public street or lane.”

Under a section of the ordinance called “visual compatibility factors,” there are 11 categories for judging new construction and proposed changes. They range from height to roof shape to the “rhythm” (relationship) of the buildings with other structures.

Preservationists argue that such considerations are not trivial, as they make a city palatable to visitors, thereby making money. “If we do not safeguard the character of our community, if we allow it to fray around the edges, people are not going to be interested in coming to see it,” said Stephanie Churchill, executive director of the Historic Savannah Foundation.

‘Behaving Like Nazis’

However, many here argue that focusing on the past is preventing progress for the future. The board is “behaving like Nazis or like czars,” Hall said. “That’s not what I want in my government.”

Many people here disparage preservation officials, and some have become local celebrities by defying city orders based on preservation officials’ judgments.

Michael Faber, a Savannah delicatessen owner ran up against the wrath of preservationists when he put up a red awning at his restaurant, located in the historic district--despite the fact that his sandwiches passed strenuous taste tests.

He won his fight, but his bitterness, tinged with humor, lingers. “Preserve the cemetery,” Faber exhorts, “but don’t put the businessman in it.”

One after another, he zings one-liners at preservationists: Having them sit around a table demanding to see paint samples is like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” and, “If the world stopped, it would take Savannah 25 years to catch up.”

And just to rub in his indignation on city officials, Faber makes sure his bright red awning is well lighted at night, “so they don’t miss it.” His matching red window sign trumpets, in white letters, “Faber’s. A Savannah Tradition since 1989.”

Walter of the national trust is unamused. Citing “the extraordinarily beautiful color of Old Savannah brick and the wonderful filigree of the wrought iron,” he is against “turning your back on what makes the place special.”

Calling the current activist preservationist movement a “reaction against urban renewal,” Walter said: “If there is anything we have learned over the last 20 years, it is that the way you build a successful community is to make historic preservation part of the plan.”

Sign of Trouble

A sign of the diminished clout of the preservationists was the construction of the Hyatt Regency Hotel along the Savannah River earlier in the decade. It is modest by many cities’ standards, but here its peach-colored, boxy architecture looms among the historic buildings. Built by local developer Merritt W. Dixon III, it stands 7 stories high and has 346 rooms. The promise of its substantial tax revenue as the city’s largest hotel overcame bitter opposition from the entrenched preservationist Establishment.

But no clash over preservation values here has been more remarkable than Bud Hall’s.

It began in October, 1987, when Hall tried out several colors on the Queen Anne-style Victorian home, which was built in 1896. All the colors were authentic from the Victorian period, Hall said the other day, showing a visitor a chart called “Victorian Hues.” He originally selected five colors, including Public House, a robin’s-egg blue, and Andover, a pink. At one point he even painted his tin roof in pink stripes.

The Savannah Historic Review Board pounced on Hall, slapping him with a stop-work order, arguing that his paint job was out of character with the rest of the neighborhood. “Sof-f-f-t,” said Hall, derisively. “They wanted colors that were sof-f-f-t. Well, the Victorians were not soft. They were extremely eclectic. They were whimsical.”

The dispute escalated, with Hall getting hauled into court and fined $100. Last year, he had an artist paint women on plywood panels, asserting that the panels were an energy-saving measure for his windows. Preservationists and some of Hall’s neighbors hate the panels, but they remain on the windows.

“The windows are not a typical treatment for that style house,” said Reiter in unaffected understatement. “It looks like stained glass.”

The house’s notoriety has earned it a stop on the tour-bus route, and sometimes the guide toots her horn at Hall, whose home is known as “House of Many Colors.”

Hall now talks of bigger battles with City Hall. “I want economic change in this community,” he said, asserting that the preservation Establishment should be joining him and others in that struggle instead of mounting a paint patrol.

“We realize we need to attract business,” said Reiter, but she argued that, in trying to curb Hall’s eclecticism, she was trying to prevent “bit by bit, piece by piece, the unraveling of the historic district.” Preservation and economic progress “are not mutually exclusive,” Reiter said.

But despite three decades of effort, preservationists have been unable to energize much of this city’s commercial district, most notably Broughton Street and an ailing City Market, in the middle of the historic area.

In one recent study, titled “Is Savannah Growing Senile?,” a group of business and civic leaders calling itself Renaissance Savannah spared almost none of Establishment Savannah, criticizing business, political and media leaders. The report places the city ninth on a list of 14 Southeastern cities in population growth--behind Orlando, Fla., Montgomery, Ala., and Augusta, Ga. The report likens Savannah to an “underdeveloped country.”

Said Julie Smith, a member of the group and a Chatham County commissioner: “The only industry that is growing is tourism. We need to get the city moving again.”

“We’ve had a lot of surveys, a lot of talking, a lot of writing and not a damned bit of action,” said one longtime business owner here.

It is debatable how much of this restiveness can be blamed on preservationists blocking progress and discouraging people from coming here, but Reiter acknowledges that “we’re the target right now. Preservation is a wonderful focal point.”

Bud Hall is doing all he can to keep it that way, although, he says, he has gone broke fighting City Hall.

He said that after his many appearances in court, filing appeals and paying legal fees, he has been forced to file bankruptcy. “Lawyers aren’t cheap,” he said, estimating that his expenses have run “into the thousands of dollars.”

Nevertheless, Hall seems to relish his role as Savannah iconoclast. “I’m amused by the whole thing,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll do next.”