Smithsonian Scientist Faults Mission Project

Upset by expansion of a school at the San Buenaventura Mission, a top anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution has criticized church officials for “indefensible destruction of important portions of this landmark site.”

The comments by Dennis Stanford, chairman of the anthropology department at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., cheered opponents of the $5.5-million project, although the Smithsonian has no authority over such work.

But it was certain his three-paragraph letter would add fuel to an explosive dispute involving the church, archeologists and various Chumash factions.

“I think it’s just wonderful,” said Theresa Raitt, a Chumash descendant concerned about destruction of Indian relics on the grounds of the 215-year-old mission. “The church people are more interested in financial gain than in the heritage of our people.”

Parish representatives, who have delayed construction until arguments are settled, weren’t as impressed.

Msgr. Patrick J. O’Brien declined to comment but referred calls to Devlin Raley, a parishioner who owns a Ventura public relations firm.

“The mission isn’t just blasting ahead in some insensitive and illogical manner,” Raley said. “This is being handled in an extremely sensitive way.”

The Smithsonian scientist learned about the battle over Holy Cross School from Gary Stickel, an archeologist fired by the church in October. Stickel had claimed church officials tried pressuring him into doing hasty evaluations so work on the school could proceed.

Stickel’s protests led to an investigation by the state Office of Historical Preservation, which found nothing amiss at the mission. However, Stickel said Stanford’s letter showed otherwise.

“This should have a tremendous impact,” he said. “The opposition has continued to downplay--and even demean--the significance of the site. This letter should lay that to rest once and for all. There is no higher authority in the U.S. than the National Museum.”

In his letter, Stanford called the mission “a national treasure.” He decried the lack of “adequate planning and sensitivity on the parts of all parties” and recommended that early mission structures be excavated, reconstructed and incorporated into the new school building.

“This would enhance and give a firsthand sociological and historic context to the educational experience of future students,” he wrote. “The right educators could turn the site into a natural laboratory/classroom.”

In light of recently discovered sketches of the mission’s original floor plan, Stanford called for “additional detailed archeological work, if not preservation.”

John Johnson, curator of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and an expert on the Chumash, agreed, although he commended the mission for care in the school’s design.

“In the ideal world, funds would be raised to reimburse the mission for the expenditure they’ve made so the school could be built elsewhere,” he said. “This is a site of regional and national importance. It needs to be preserved for posterity.”

The school is to occupy a sloped, grassy field on the grounds of the church in downtown Ventura. A century or more ago, it was the mission’s quadrangle and was lined with adobe buildings that were home to priests, novices and the Indians who served as the mission’s labor force. Eventually, those structures caved in and were covered by eroding dirt from the hillside behind them. Four feet under, archeologists have uncovered bits of the mission’s original tile floors.

Nick Deitch, the project’s architect, said his group studied the site for more than two years before construction began last fall.

“We very early recognized that we were dealing with an archeological minefield,” he said. “Anywhere you dig, you’re bound to hit something.”

To minimize that risk, the building’s plan calls not for a standard foundation but for beams at ground level resting on more than 80 caissons dug as much as 50 feet into the soil.

“We designed the structural system to span over all this stuff so we wouldn’t have to excavate and ruin and destroy it,” Deitch said.

Archeologists already have combed much of the site, he added, and collected shells, glass beads, pipes and other artifacts for future study.

But he questioned the value of a much more extensive scrutiny. “We’ve got substantial documentation as to what’s been found,” he said. “It’s all interesting, but very little of it has shed any new light on what the mission was and how it operated.”

On the other hand, critics point out that once the school is in place, further excavation would be extremely tough. They say the building would seal off any underground remains of the areas outlined in the recently discovered sketches--the mission’s old carpenter shop, its weaving room, its wine cellar, its bakery, the padres’ kitchen, their dining room, their storeroom.

“In the future, if not the near future, people will want to reconstruct those rooms,” said Stickel, who discovered a peach pit in an area identified in the old sketches as “the plaza of the three peach trees.”

For his part, Deitch is sympathetic but not sold. Reconstructing the mission’s ruins would cost millions of dollars that nobody seems to have, he said.

“It is a historic site,” he agreed. “But the reality is that site isn’t a museum. It’s a living, working, breathing church and school.”