HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA
Kara Lynn Brunzell
B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1988
PROJECT
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
HISTORY
(Public History)
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
FALL
2009
HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA
A Project
by
Kara Lynn Brunzell
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Dr. Lee Simpson
__________________________________, Second Reader
Dr. Patrick Ettinger
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Kara Lynn Brunzell
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for the Project.
__________________________, Department Chair
Dr. Christopher Castaneda
Department of History
iii
________________
Date
Abstract
of
HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA
by
Kara Lynn Brunzell
Statement of Problem
How do historic preservation activities in Napa, California relate to the theory and
practice of preservation? How does Napa’s history fit into broader themes of history, and
how does Napa’s historic architecture illustrate that history.
Sources of Data
Data sources include the printed and online literature of historic preservation, urban
history, local history, and cultural resource management. The student also consulted works
of local and state history, historic resource surveys and other local planning documents,
and documented her experience as an intern for the City of Napa.
Conclusions Reached
Napa’s history and historic preservation efforts reflect broader themes of history
and the evolving historic preservation movement. Emerging areas of preservation, such as
historic landscapes and heritage tourism, will gain importance in Napa’s future.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Dr. Lee Simpson
_______________________
Date
iv
DEDICATION
To my eminently patient family, who supported and encouraged me over the last three years.
They deserve no less than my permanent retirement from academic pursuits as a reward for their
heroic efforts.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who made this project
possible. My family, Alice, Nora, Simone, Ynez, and Phil Barber, provided incalculable
quantities of love, encouragement, and humor. Their support enabled me to juggle the
commute, coursework, and internships required by the CSUS Public History Program. Our
chaotic household was the perfect antidote for long hours of research and thesis-writing.
Thank you for all your kindness and help, and for letting me monopolize the computer. My
brother, David Brunzell, has been not only a source of encouragement, but an alwaysavailable information resource.
Several CSUS professors contributed significantly to the knowledge and skills I built
in the Public History program. Marie Nelson introduced me to historic preservation. Rand
Herbert and Greg King helped me get started in Cultural Resource Management. Mona
Siegel honed my writing and critical thinking. Charles Roberts and Shirley Moore
encouraged me to think about history from the perspective of the dispossessed. Charles
Postel provided a challenging perspective on American history.
Several people in Napa also assisted me greatly. Marlene Demery, Planning Director
at the City of Napa, brought me on staff to work on the local preservation program. Her
high expectations allowed me to stretch my wings in this internship. I was able gain
precious preservation experience by working with the Cultural Heritage Commission,
writing grant applications, and assisting with surveys. The volunteer members of the
vi
Cultural Heritage Commission have also provided me with invaluable encouragement,
technical advice, knowledge of local history, and practical help. And city staff, of course,
made it all possible with their administrative support.
Lee Simpson provided fundamental direction for this project, pointing me towards
crucial readings and refining the scope of my research. She has generously (and quickly)
responded to all my questions, and her edits and commentary were helpful. My advisor,
Patrick Ettinger, has guided my path through this program with wisdom as well as wit. I
would certainly not have met the fall deadline without his gentle pressure. It was he who
goaded me “off the couch” in early October, insisting that I could write this paper in three
weeks if I set my mind to it. His kind words, positive attitude, and incisive thinking have
spurred me to improve my own thinking and writing both on this project and during the
course of the Public History program.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication ............................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi
Chapter
1.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION: THEORY AND PRACTICE ...................................1
Introduction ...........................................................................................................1
Early Preservation Efforts in the United States ....................................................1
The Birth of the Historic District ..........................................................................5
Federal Government Involvement ........................................................................7
The National Historic Preservation Act ..............................................................10
Post-NHPA Preservation ....................................................................................13
Legal Precedent ...................................................................................................15
Preservation After 1980 ......................................................................................16
Landscape, Rural, and Small-Town Preservation ...............................................16
2.
HISTORY OF NAPA, CALIFORNIA .....................................................................21
Origins.................................................................................................................21
The Mexican Period ............................................................................................22
American Settlement – Gold Rush .....................................................................22
American Settlement – Agricultural Development.............................................25
viii
American Consolidation and Prosperity .............................................................26
Early Twentieth Century .....................................................................................31
Prohibition and Depression .................................................................................34
World War II and the Modern Era ......................................................................36
3.
REDEVELOPMENT AND PRESERVATION IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA ............41
The Redevelopment Era ......................................................................................41
1980 to the Present ..............................................................................................44
The Formation of Preservation Non-Profits in Napa ..........................................47
The Formation of the Cultural Heritage Commission ........................................50
Preservation Awareness in Napa ........................................................................54
Historic Context Survey......................................................................................56
Historic Homes Workshops ................................................................................60
California Preservation Foundation Conference .................................................62
The Future of Preservation in Napa ....................................................................63
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................64
Appendix A. Grant Application, 2009 .............................................................................70
Appendix B.
Publicity Material for Historic Homes Workshop.....................................77
Appendix C.
Historic Homes Workshop Schedule.........................................................79
Appendix D.
Historic Landscapes PowerPoint Presentation ..........................................81
Appendix E.
Grant Application, 2010 ............................................................................92
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................100
ix
1
Chapter 1
HISTORIC PRESERVATION: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Introduction
Though commemoration and public remembrance of history have been elements of
American culture since the early colonial era, historic preservation as it is understood today
is a relatively recent phenomenon. American preservation, restoration, and reconstruction
of old buildings did not begin in earnest until the nineteenth century. The climate of
patriotic nationalism that developed after the Revolutionary War led Americans to attempt
to preserve sites associated with the heroes of the Revolution. Since that era, historic
preservation has morphed and spread into a much broader endeavor, one that would
scarcely be recognizable to the first American preservationists. One of the recurrent themes
in the American preservation movement has been the split between private and
government-sponsored preservation endeavors. The purpose of this paper is to outline the
history, theory, and evolving practice of American historic preservation. A brief history of
one town, Napa, California, and its efforts at historic preservation over the past forty years
will serve as a case study. Napa’s history and its ever-changing preservation landscape will
serve to exemplify the issues raised by the general literature of historic preservation.
Early Preservation Efforts in the United States
The first American efforts at building preservation grew out of a desire to keep the
actions of “great men” alive in the public memory. Groups of interested individuals began
to mount efforts to restore and preserve particular buildings, such as Independence Hall in
2
Philadelphia, a synagogue built in Rhode Island in the eighteenth century, and Thomas
Jefferson’s Monticello. These commemorative restorations began as early as 1816. The
well-known campaign to preserve George Washington’s home, however, begun in 1853 by
the Mount Vernon Ladies Association (MVLA), is widely recognized as the birth of the
American Historic Preservation movement. Though it is important to acknowledge its
preservation antecedents, the Mount Vernon effort is significant for its status as the
paradigm of nineteenth-century preservation in the United States.
As William Murtagh points out in Keeping Time: The History and Theory of
Preservation in America, Mount Vernon’s preservation was “seminal” on several fronts.
Like the earlier efforts listed above, Mount Vernon was preserved through grass-roots
organizing and fund-raising by a group of private citizens. Nineteenth-century preservation
of historic sites was motivated by the era’s nativistic patriotism. The sites considered most
significant were those associated with great men, who were almost always political
or military leaders, or, like Washington, both. The MVLA broke with earlier
commemoration movements, however, in that it was the first group to mobilize wealthy
women behind a strong female leader. In doing so, the association created a lasting
template for what would be more than a century of amateur female leadership of the
American preservation movement.1
In creating a secular shrine to Washington, the MVLA was, Murtagh argues, an
elite group attempting to hold onto its status in the face of a rapidly changing society.
Immigration and new wealth threatened the old class system, and preservation of sites
1. William J. Murtagh, Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America,
(Pittstown, NJ: Main Street Press) 1988, 29.
3
associated with great men was a natural response. Laura Croghan Kamoie adds nuance
to Murtagh’s argument with her assertion that race and sectional tensions were also
essential motivating factors for this group of Southern white women. In 2003 Kamoie
reviewed an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, which
celebrated the MVLA’s achievements. The author notes that MVLA founder Ann Pamela
Cunningham recruited wealthy southern white women on the basis of “Southern feeling
and honor.” Mount Vernon worked within the tradition of the historic site as shrine, a
space marked off from ordinary places and separate from the fabric of visitors’ daily lives. 2
Well into the twentieth century, preservationists continued to utilize the basic
elements of the approach pioneered so effectively by the MVLA. The creators of Colonial
Williamsburg, like the Mount Vernon preservationists, focused on the preservation of
physical evidence of “the spirit of the past.” Williamsburg had served as Virginia’s capital
between 1699 and 1779, but many of the original buildings had either been replaced or
seriously deteriorated by the twentieth century. W.A.R. Goodwin, who oversaw the
restoration of a Williamsburg church as its rector, became interested in restoring more
buildings in the historic town. John D. Rockefeller supported the project financially, and it
eventually grew into a 1920s restoration of the entire village. Goodwin and his associates
not only restored the buildings from Williamsburg’s era of glory, they recreated buildings
that had been demolished and removed those constructed after the period of significance.
Ibid., 29; Laura Croghan Kamoie, “Saving Mount Vernon: The Birth of Preservation in America,”
CRM, The Journal of Heritage Stewardship, Fall, 2003,
http://crmjournal.cr.nps.gov/08_rexhibit_sub.cfm?issue=Volume%201%20Number%201%20Fall%202003&
seq=5, accessed 22 October 2009.
2
4
Over 700 buildings that had been constructed after 1790 were demolished in order to
present a unified colonial-era appearance.3
Though the Colonial Williamsburg project involved preserving an entire village
rather than one famous person’s dwelling, the motivations of its creators were very similar
to the MVLA’s. Patriotism and commemoration of the founding of the nation were as
important to the creation of this site as to Mount Vernon. Nineteenth- and early- twentiethcentury house museums and outdoor museums operated according to the same guiding
principles. Early preservationists focused on setting aside special sites that enlightened,
inspired, and entertained vistors.4
Colonial Williamsburg was and continues to be a smashing success in terms of
numbers of visitors and revenue brought into the area. During the 1930s and subsequent
decades, Colonial Williamsburg cast a long shadow over other towns that boasted historic
architecture with similar potential for economic exploitation, and many towns attempted
imitations. The methodology its creators used, however, is widely considered flawed by
today’s standards. The destruction of so many non-conforming buildings laid the
organizers open to charges of presenting a sanitized, and even falsified, version of the
town’s history. Just as serious is the fact that these unwanted buildings represented over
200 years of history that occurred after the chosen period of significance. In addition to the
demolition of so many resources, some of the buildings that ultimately became part of
Colonial Williamsburg were replicas. Though based on extensive research, these
3
David Hamer, History in Urban Places: The Historic Districts of the United States, (Columbus:
Ohio State University Press, 1998), 2.
4
Murtagh, 36.
5
reconstructions could never truly replicate the originals they were intended to represent.
In his insightful volume, History in Urban Places: The Historic Districts of the United
States, David Hamer has referred to this demolition and reconstruction as “the selection of
history to be remembered and preserved.”5
The Birth of the Historic District
Though Colonial Williamsburg has certainly been a successful and influential
venture by many measures, this sort of blatant manipulation of historical architecture is no
longer accepted as a desirable method of building preservation or of educating the public
about history. A grass-roots preservation drive begun in 1929 in Charleston, South
Carolina, however, has largely retained its relevance in the ensuing eighty years.
Charleston had been an important port in the early nineteenth century, but had lost its
position after the Civil War. Much of the grand architecture of its heyday remained, in
spite or because of the fact that progress had passed Charleston by in the early twentieth
century. Its revolutionary neighborhood preservation movement was galvanized by the
construction of gas stations in Charleston’s oldest neighborhoods, and by architects from
other cities stripping local mansions of their original fixtures and fittings. In 1931 the
grass-roots effort resulted in the formation of the Old and Historic Charleston District,
America’s first historic district. Charleston was a major departure from the tradition of
historic preservation as the saving of special places that were outside the prosaic realm of
contemporary life.6
Hamer, 2 – 3; Ibid., 4; Norman Tyler, Historic Preservation: an Introduction to its History,
Principles, and Practice, (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2000), 38; Hamer, 4.
6
Murtagh, 105.
5
6
Prior to the designation of Old and Historic Charleston, American cities had not
restricted the use of private property in order to benefit the public through neighborhood
conservation. Old Charleston’s designation broadened the house museum-based
preservation paradigm to include occupied neighborhoods. Before Charleston, the historic
preservation had generally meant a shrine to a great man. Who had lived in a building was
far more important than the aesthetics of that building. The ground-breaking approach in
Charleston heralded a shift to preserving buildings for their architectural value or their
local significance. In Charleston historic preservation also broadened to include vernacular
buildings for the first time.7
Though Charleston’s preservation-oriented property restrictions were enacted
without enabling legislation at the state level, this did not prevent the district from
effectively preserving the character of Old Charleston. The district’s legality was dubious
by today’s standards, but it was successful due to local conditions that included broad
community support, a combination of public and private leadership, and a relatively
wealthy local base of support. Hamer argues that although the Charleston effort was
certainly ground-breaking, unique local conditions also contributed to the district’s
success. In particular, Charlestonians’ self-consciousness and pride regarding local
heritage, as well as the truly extraordinary architectural quality of the city, were
circumstances that could not easily be replicated in other locales.8
7
8
Ibid., 58.
Tyler, 39; Hamer, 6.
7
The creation of Charleston’s historic district is widely heralded as the genesis of
the modern American historic district. The pioneering concept of neighborhood
conservation considerably broadened the preservation agenda in the United States.
Murtagh defines neighborhood preservation as “a heterogenous project, the whole of which
exceeds the value of the individual parts.” Rising or falling property value, sociological
change, neighborhood boundaries, and integrity of location are all issues crucial to the
formation of historic districts, none of which were considered important to the creators of
earlier house and outdoor museums. Hamer points out that many techniques used in
modern preservation were first attempted in Charleston. These included historic zoning,
architectural review, a comprehensive architectural survey, a local foundation, and a
revolving fund for preservation.9
Federal Government Involvement
In addition to the private and local government-sponsored preservation programs
discussed above, the federal government began to get involved with historic preservation
in the 1930s. Preservation had traditionally been handled locally in the United States, and
private individuals or occasionally local governments took the lead on deciding what to
preserve and how to preserve it. But federal efforts to stimulate employment during the
Great Depression led to an unprecedented allocation of tax dollars toward preservationrelated activities. One of the most significant was the Historic American Building Survey,
begun in 1933. This nation-wide survey not only produced an archive of information on
historic buildings and established standardized methodology for recording historic
9
Murtagh, 105; Ibid., 108; Hamer, 6.
8
resources, it also created a template for future federal involvement in the preservation
of privately owned buildings.10
Federal leadership in historic preservation continued to increase as the twentieth
century progressed. In 1947 the National Council for Historic Sites began its effort to
launch the National Trust for Historic Preservation. President Harry Truman signed the
legislation which created the National Trust in 1949. The National Trust remains the
largest American preservation organization – and probably the most influential. The
diverse activities of the National Trust include direct administration of historic sites,
and the publication of Preservation magazine. The Trust established the Main Street
Center in 1980, and continues its involvement with this popular downtown revitalization
program today. The National Trust also maintains a list of threatened architectural
treasures, gives preservation awards, and acts as an influential national advocate for saving
historic resources.11
The Federal government’s influence on historic buildings and neighborhoods,
however, has not always been benign. During the middle decades of the twentieth century,
ambitious and well-meaning housing and highway programs pursued modernization
without fully considering its impact on historic architecture. Federal activities during this
era led more often to the destruction of historic structures than to their preservation. The
Housing Act of 1949 and the Urban Renewal Act of 1954 were intended to improve older
American cities by replacing deteriorated inner-city housing with functional modern
10
11
Murtagh, 56 – 58.
Murtagh, 48; National Trust for Historic Preservation website,
http://www.preservationnation.org/about-us/history.htm, accessed 22 October 2009.
9
buildings. Lina Cofresi and Rosetta Radtke are representative of preservationist
consensus in their assertion that these programs were “directly responsible for the
wholesale clearance of entire inner-city slum neighborhoods in many historic towns and
cities across the country.” Federal program managers expected private developers to step
in and rebuild blighted areas, however, the cleared lots were frequently left vacant for
years when investors did not materialize. The philosophy behind urban renewal was a
conscious obliteration of traces of the past in the name of progress. Hamer points out that a
desire to shed unpleasant memories of the Great Depression and the inspirational example
of urban regeneration in war-torn European cities led to broad enthusiasm for these
policies for a time.12
United States Department of Transportation policies during this era worked in
tandem with housing policy to destroy old neighborhoods in inner cities. The Highway Act
of 1956 “boosted highway funding by a quantum leap,” Owen D. Gutfreund states in
Twentieth Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape.
Gutfreund also argues that federal policy drained resources from urban areas and funneled
them into suburbanization. Cutting highways through residential areas exacerbated the
building demolition and neighborhood obliteration caused by urban renewal. Tyler concurs
with Gutfreund’s assessment that urban areas were sacrificed in order to build up suburbs.
He states that “there were no more heavy-handed aggressors than the bulldozers of the
highway program. Center cities, and their rich historic fabric of businesses and
Hamer, 12; Lina Cofresi and Rosetta Radtke, “Local Government Programs: Preservation Where it
Counts,” in Robert E. Stipe, ed., A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-first Century,
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 119; Tyler, 191; Hamer, 13.
12
10
neighborhoods, were destroyed in the attempt to make them accessible to the new and
powerful suburban commuter.”13
Though urban renewal is reviled by preservationists for the destruction it caused to
historic neighborhoods and buildings, most acknowledge that its legacy is not entirely
negative. The program was extremely complex, and at times urban renewal funds were
used for preservation rather than demolition. Even more significant, however, is the
reaction provoked by the scale of the program and the rapidity of the change it wrought.
Hamer argues that urban renewal was a “crucial catalyst,” both for the formation of a broad
and activist nation-wide preservation constituency and for the shift in focus of preservation
practice from the protection of individual buildings to the creation of historic districts.14
The National Historic Preservation Act
In 1965 the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in conjunction with the National Trust,
published the preservation manifesto, With Heritage So Rich. This influential effort led
Congress to pass seminal American preservation legislation, the 1966 National Historic
Preservation Act (NHPA). This broad constellation of legislation inserted the federal
government into historic preservation to an unprecedented degree. In Historic
Preservation, Norman Tyler assesses NHPA’s value as greater than its primary function as
regulatory protection for resources. Tyler credits the act with bringing about fundamental
change in the American perspective on preservation from an optional activity engaged in
by elites to an “integral part of society.” In her introduction to A Richer Heritage, Diane
13
Owen D. Gutfreund, Twentieth-century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American
Landscape, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 55; Ibid., 59; Tyler, 216.
14
Hamer, 14; Ibid., 12.
11
Lea asserts that, “it is simply impossible to overstate the importance or incentive value
of the 1966 Act.”15
Several separate components of NHPA have had a significant impact on the
American preservation since passage of the act. Title I of NHPA authorized the nationwide inventory of significant historic properties, the National Register of Historic Places,
and specified its administration by the National Park Service under the Secretary of
Interior. While earlier registers had included only buildings, structures, and objects, NHPA
specified that districts were also eligible for inclusion. The National Park Service
assembled staff to craft significance criteria for potential resources. To qualify for the
National Register a historic resources must “possess integrity of location, design, setting,
materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.” In addition, National Register resources
must be relevant under one of four criteria: association with historical events, association
with an important person, architectural excellence or typicality, or a likelihood to yield
important data.16
The National Register is important as a source of pride and recognition for
communities and owners of historic buildings. However, the unique symbiotic relationship
between federal, state, and local governments on historic preservation is probably the
National Register’s most significant legacy. Rather than a federal bureau dictating historic
significance to states and municipalities, the National Register became a collaborative
effort between local and national governance. Part of this effort involved the creation of
15
Tyler, 45; Diane Lea, “America’s Preservation Ethos: A Tribute to Enduring Ideals,” in Stipe, 11.
National Park Service Website, “Introduction,” and “Determinations of Eligibility,”
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/publications/bulletins/brochure/, accessed 23 October 2009.
16
12
State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO’s), which today perform much front-line
preservation work. Murtagh defines the National Register as a “state and local program in
which the federal government reacts to those. . . resources which the states and localities
recommend as worth preservation.” Cofresi and Radtke argue that the connection forged
between local historic resources and federal money “was the real significance of the 1966
act.”17
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is another important
legacy of NHPA. Title II of NHPA provided for the ACHP, an independent federal agency
which promotes the “preservation, enhancement and productive use of our Nation’s
historic resources.” The ACHP’s independence makes it valuable as a preservation
watchdog, and it also performs the essential function of administering Section 106.18
Section 106 is perhaps the most significant portion of the NHPA legislation. This
statute mandates that cultural resources be taken into account before federal money is spent
on any type of construction project. John M. Fowler, in his chapter in A Richer Heritage on
the Federal Preservation Program, refers to Section 106 as “the centerpiece of federal
protection for historic properties.” Section 106 does not restrict how private funds are
allocated, or prevent a National Register building from being demolished by its owner, or
even outlaw a freeway chopping up a historic district. What it does do is to provide an
invaluable mechanism to protect historic properties from harm caused by federal activities.
Section 106 mandates that historic resources be, at a minimum, documented and taken into
17
Murtagh, 73; Cofresi and Radtke in Stipe, 119.
18
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation website, http://www.achp.gov/, accessed 20 October
2009.
13
account before ground is broken on any federally funded highway or construction
project. Though this does not guarantee their retention, it often slows down the bulldozers
long enough to find ways around the demolition of historic buildings.19
The passage of NHPA was a watershed in terms of federal protection of historic
resources. The modern focus on context evolved from the work of the U.S. Conference of
Mayors in 1965, who insisted that saving individual buildings was not sufficient and that
“total heritage” must be taken into account. This broadening, which grew out of a reaction
against urban renewal, led to increased emphasis on neighborhood conservation and the
“district” concept. Far from acting in a vacuum, Congress was part of a cultural wave in
favor of preservation. Hamer argues that Congress, in enacting NHPA, was “responding to
and reflecting growing support for local preservation.”20
Post-NHPA Preservation
NHPA also marked the beginning of a process of professionalization of
preservation activities that has continued to increase until today. Section 106, in particular,
led to the creation of “cultural resource management” (CRM) as a professional discipline.
Thomas F. King, in his Cultural Resource Laws & Practice: An Introductory Guide,
concisely sums up the birth of CRM. Archaeologists, King writes, came up with the term
to distinguish themselves from historic preservationists after the passage of NHPA. The
confusion over whether CRM encompasses archaeology, historic preservation, or both,
while implying a responsibility for resources that goes beyond either discipline, “has
19
John M. Fowler, “The Federal Preservation Program,” in Stipe, 45.
20
Hamer, 18.
14
allowed a considerable range of such resources to be ignored by federal planners and
decision-makers – indeed it has encouraged them to do so.” In his more recent Thinking
About Cultural Resource Management, King defines what the enterprise should be: “CRM
is centrally about living people and their communities, and the values they ascribe to
aspects of the physical environment.”21
Preservation continued to evolve significantly over the next fifteen years. In 1976
Congress instituted tax incentives that finished the work NHPA had begun in shifting
federal weight to preservation rather than demolition. Prior to this change in law, tax
incentives had rewarded demolition and new construction more highly than the
preservation of existing buildings. John M. Fowler, in an essay on federal preservation,
argues that though rather modest, these incentives increased the pace of preservation by
making it more economically attractive.22 (Richer, 60)
A NHPA amendment in 1980 created the Certified Local Government (CLG)
program. Like the National Register, the CLG program’s effect is to increase the synergy
of local, state, and federal government preservation efforts. The federal government
created the CLG program, but gave states, specifically SHPO’s the authority to grant CLG
status to local governments. SHPO’s also regulate CLG’s, ensuring that certified
municipalities use widely agreed upon standards and enforce preservation ordinances.
Though decentralization, the original goal of the program, has not worked as thoroughly as
21
Thomas F. King, Cultural Resource Laws and Practice: An Introductory Guide, (Walnut
Creek: Altamira Press, 1998), 18; Thomas F. King, Thinking About Cultural Resource Management: Essays
from the Edge, (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2002), 15.
22
Fowler, in Stipe, 60.
15
its creators hoped, the CLG program has, as argued by Cofresi and Radtke,
“significantly boosted the effectiveness and credibility of local preservation.”23
Legal Precedent
In addition to congressional legislation supporting historic preservation, the courts
began in the 1970s to uphold the legality of enforceable local historic preservation
regulations. The Penn Central case provided a significant legal precedent that continues to
be relied on by preservationists today. In 1978 Penn Central Transportation Company and
the City of New York battled in court over the company’s right to build a cantilevered
tower addition over Grand Central Station. The proposed new construction would have
been much taller than the original structure, and would have required the destruction of
part of the original façade. The Supreme Court decision in favor of the city consolidated
local government’s right to deny building permits in order to preserve historic buildings.
This decision remains the legal basis for municipal controls on private historic properties.
More than thirty years later, the Penn Central case is considered a preservation milestone.
This case continues to be, as stated on the National Trust’s website, “the leading case
governing the constitutionality of permit denials under the takings clauses of the federal
and state constitutions.”24
23
Tyler, 45; Cofresi and Radtke, in Stipe, 121.
Tyler, 87; National Trust for Historic Preservation website, Legal Resources,
http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/legal-resources/understanding-preservation-law/constitutionalissues/takings-clause.html, accessed 21 October 2009.
24
16
Preservation After 1980
In the years since 1980, the scope of historic preservation has continued to broaden,
both in theory and in practice. The number of historic districts, preservation non-profits,
and preservation professionals continues to grow nationwide. The types of resources
considered worthy of preservation also continue to expand. Vernacular buildings, cultural
landscapes, small towns, and rural resources are some of the areas that have come sharply
into the focus of preservationists over the last three decades.
Landscape, Rural, and Small-Town Preservation
Though landscapes have traditionally been preserved alongside buildings, they did
not come into focus in their own right until recently. Twentieth-century garden
preservation focused on providing an attractive setting for historic buildings. The
landscape was considered secondary, and plants were often chosen for an old-fashioned
feel rather than based on documentation, as such documentation was often unavailable. It
was not until the 1970s that landscape preservation began to be taken more seriously and
pursued for its own sake rather than as a backdrop for historic buildings. Another issue
affecting landscape preservation is that improving a landscape’s scenic beauty may
actually require the destruction of its historic features. Though landscapes are commonly
placed in one of three categories -designed, natural, or cultural- there is a broad consensus
that these designations overlap and blur into one another. Landscape preservation is also
17
often difficult to separate from another preservation growth sector, the effort to save
historic rural areas.25
Interest in rural and small town preservation has grown in recent years alongside
the maturation of landscape preservation. The concerns of rural, small town, and landscape
preservation overlap for obvious practical reasons, and many shared tenets that do not
apply to the old-fashioned focus on architectural landmarks govern their pursuit. The
preservation of rural areas, which manifestly includes both historic structures and
landscapes, is extremely complex. It has been plagued by particular difficulties and
specific political issues. Suburban sprawl and insensitive highway development threaten
rural areas, which often have minimal forms of government that lack the tools to combat
these threats. In addition, dispersed rural populations are often unable to exercise enough
political clout to compete with that mobilized in densely populated areas.26
Some of the very attributes that make rural landscapes special can also threaten
their existence. The traditional absence of professional land-use planning in rural areas, for
example, provides some of the unique attributes of rural areas while also posing a special
challenge for rural preservation. Though small rural towns derive much of their historic
character from informally organized open spaces and the greater distance between historic
resources, modern city planning departments are important tools for preservation. The
absence of professional planning in rural areas also exacerbates what is often a local lack
Genevieve P. Keller and J. Timothy Keller, “Preserving Important Landscapes,” in Stipe, 187; Ibid.,
189; Murtagh, 125.
25
26
Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 208.
18
of awareness regarding the value of historic resources and the practical aspects of their
preservation.27
Murtagh has argued that a vibrant agricultural economy provides a foundation
stone for rural preservation, as sprawling development lowers the acreage farmed and
destroys both historic landscapes and buildings. On the other hand, agriculture itself,
particularly modern agri-business, can threaten rural buildings and landscapes. Farm
consolidations, for example, can render rural buildings redundant, causing historic
agricultural buildings to fall into disuse.28
Even though rural landscape preservation dates from the 1970s, rural landscapes
remain underrepresented on the National Register. In addition to the challenges discussed
above, the federal government’s actions sometimes inhibit, or at least fail to encourage,
rural preservation. Awareness of rural significance criteria lags behind other types of
preservation knowledge, sometimes even in SHPO offices. Furthermore, conservation tax
incentives that are used to preserve historic architecture do not apply to landscapes. The
Federal Highway Administration, while it tends to readily recognize individual resources,
can be reluctant to acknowledge rural historic districts. This leaves transportation corridors
free for destructive highway development. In fact, as the federal government did in urban
areas in the 1960s, government programs on balance tend to promote rural development
over landscape preservation.29
27
Murtagh, 135; Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 208.
28
Murtagh, 135; Ibid., 137; Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 209.
29
Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 194; Ibid., 204, Ibid., 209.
19
Though in the past environmental conservation and building preservation often
seemed to be oppositional values, rural landscape preservation efforts are showing them to
be convergent. In recent years, conservation and preservation are more frequently
considered “two sides of the same coin,” as Murtagh has argued. As land trust movements
grow in rural areas, the idea that preservation of the cultural and natural environments are
overlapping rather than mutually exclusive pursuits is becoming mainstream. Suburban
sprawl is possibly the most serious threat to the natural world as well as to cultural
landscapes. Genevieve P. Keller and J. Timothy Keller analyze this issue incisively in their
essay “Preserving Important Landscapes.” They argue that inappropriate rural development
and urban flight/urban decline are two faces of the same issue. The authors point to the
failure of the preservation community to link them as the cause of lagging rural
preservation. Many rural communities attempt to stem sprawl through land-use
regulations. The Kellers argue, however, that,
until preservationists understand that only extensive rehabilitation and even
selective redevelopment in urban centers and deteriorating inner suburbs will begin
to halt the continued development and despoliation of farmland and countryside,
rural land protection is likely to continue to be a series of skirmishes and brushfires
with successes concentrated primarily in well-off rural communities.30
So an attempt to preserve rural landscapes leads back to downtown revitalization.
Preservation issues are not easily separated into discrete themes; each category of cultural
resource conservation overlaps with the next. One of the most popular and lasting
preservation efforts is the Main Street program, which was pioneered by the National Trust
in 1977, and seeks to help communities to re-invigorate their historic commercial districts.
The program seeks to preserve historic buildings for economic benefits as well as the
30
Murtagh, 125; Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 209; Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 209 – 210.
20
intangible humanistic values traditionally associated with preservation. A partnership
between local government and business, Main Street was conceived as a way to compete
with malls by exploiting the commercial potential of historic architecture.31
Despite its undeniable successes, the Main Street program is not without its
detractors. Main Street’s dual goals of simultaneously revitalizing and preserving old
downtown areas can lead to some odd results, and opens the program up to criticism. Main
Street projects’ focus on economic viability has frequently led to beautification that comes
at the expense of historic features. In an attempt to attract people to downtown areas,
features with an antique appearance, such as brick sidewalks, can give an elite “period”
makeover to an area with a humble history. Many of these projects can destroy historic
landscapes in their attempt to preserve and restore historic buildings or give a historic
appearance to buildings. Facadism, which preserves exterior aspects of buildings while
destroying context, is a particular danger. The version of the past presented by Main Street
projects, as Hamer has argued, is frequently a “selective vision of an idealized community”
rather than a balanced portrait of the town’s history.32
31
Murtagh, 108; J. Myrick Howard, “Non-profits in the American Preservation Movement”, in Stipe,
324.
32
Keller and Keller, in Stipe, 211; Murtagh, 149, Hamer, 90.
21
Chapter 2
HISTORY OF NAPA, CALIFORNIA
Origins
Before the arrival of Europeans in California, the Asochimi people populated the
region that would become known as Napa Valley for thousands of years. The Mexicans
and later the Americans called them the “Wappo.” Apparently a corruption of guapo,
nineteenth-century primary sources attribute this name to military exploits against the
Spanish and translate its meaning as “brave,” (though in modern Spanish the word usually
means “handsome.”) There is very little information available regarding the Wappo prior
to their exposure to the mission at Sonoma, though early Napa historian C.A. Menefee
cites George Yount as estimating that as many as 12,000 Indians resided in the
Napa/Clearlake area when he arrived in 1831. The Wappo lived in settled villages, though
they rotated their camps seasonally. Their houses and sweatlodges were simply constructed
and meant to be regularly replaced. They fished and gathered acorns, plants, and insects for
food. The names of the six bands of Wappo in the valley have survived in local place
names. The Napa band occupied the area between Napa River and Napa Creek, which is
today the center of downtown Napa. Menefee states that the word “Napa,” in addition to
being the name of the tribelet, is the Wappo word for “fish.” The Uluca group lived east of
the river, and historic Tulocay cemetery bears their name.33
33
Stephen Powers, Tribes of California, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 196;
C. A. Menefee, Historical and Descriptive Sketchbook of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, and
Mendocino: Comprising Sketches of their Topography, Productions, History, Scenery, and Peculiar
Attractions, (Napa City, California: Reporter Publishing House, 1873), 19 – 20.
22
The Mexican Period
During the early nineteenth century the Catholic Church and Mexican land grantees
began to make inroads into the region. In 1820 the church established the mission at
Sonoma, and General Mariano Vallejo received the Sonoma and Napa valleys as a land
grant in 1838. Though the mission at Sonoma was a significant distance away from the
Wappo, the priests attempted to bring Napa Indians into their sphere of influence.
Meanwhile, Mariano Vallejo’s brother Salvador began a Napa Valley cattle ranching
operation, and the Mexican government granted Cayetano Juarez land to the east of what
would become Napa City. Like other Indian groups in California, the Indians of Napa
began during this era to be decimated by disease, slaughtered in massacres, and to be
forced to compete with introduced livestock for their means of subsistence. Menefee
records a violent cholera epidemic in 1833 that raged through the Indian population of
Northern California, while in his History of California Hubert Howe Bancroft refers to an
1838 smallpox outbreak that reduced Napa Indians to a “handful.” Though Mexican cattle
ranching and missions brought only a scattered population and did not alter the landscape
in obvious ways, change was already threatening not only the traditional lifeways but the
very existence of Napa Indians.34
American Settlement – Gold Rush
After Yount established his Napa Valley rancho, more American settlers began to
trickle into the region. Mexico still controlled the region politically, and as late as 1847,
Menefee, 19; Ibid., 15; Ibid., 22; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California: vol. VII, , 1860 –
1890, (San Francisco: The History Company, 1890), 438 – 439.
34
23
the only buildings in the Napa area were Mexican adobes. One of these, built by
Cayetano Juarez on his rancho that same year, still stands today on Soscol Avenue just
north of downtown Napa. In 1846 the American settler-led Bear Flag Revolt signaled
monumental changes on the horizon. On their way to imprison Vallejo in Sonoma, the
Bear Flag group spent two nights in Napa, adding a dozen men to their numbers. Though
little was accomplished militarily by the ragtag Bear Flag group, it pushed the United
States closer to war with Mexico and eventual annexation of California.35
By 1848 Americans were settling in greater numbers in Napa Valley, and Nathan
Coombs, who owned a farm just south of the town, laid out the town plat for “Nappa
City,” (as it was then called), a tiny area of about only 600 square yards near the
confluence of the creek and the river. In May of the same year Harrison Pierce constructed
the first permanent building in the American town, which he intended to use as a saloon.
Soon after its completion, however, news of the discovery of gold reached Napa, and
Pierce left the fledgling town in its pursuit, along with most of the other American men.
This pattern was repeated several times in Napa’s early years, with the town emptying of
men with each new rumored mineral strike. Formal American government came to Napa
with statehood in 1850, and after the organization of the county in 1851 immigration to the
area increased. By 1850 Napa City had grown to a population of 159 white residents.
However, for most of its first decade Napa had few white women and children, and none of
the trappings of “civilization.” Menefee describes a wild frontier town in which fights were
35
Menefee, 45; Mildred Brooke Hoover, Historic Spots in California: Third Edition (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1966), 244; Lin Weber and the Napa Valley Museum, Images of America: Napa
(Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004), 12; Ibid., 19; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California: vol. V,
1846 – 1848, (San Francisco: The History Company, 1886), 110.
24
common and no effort had been made to pave streets. “The streets in wet weather,” the
author asserts, “resembled mud canals rather than thoroughfares for men or horses.”36
Like the Indians and Mexicans who preceded them, the founders of Napa City
chose their site based on an essential resource: the Napa River. For the first half century of
Napa’s existence as a town, the river provided virtually the only transportation route into
and out of the county. Individuals could come and go on horseback, but goods had to be
freighted on the river. Menefee describes the importance of the river to the town: “The
Embarcadero, or landing, at the head of navigation, and the ford just above it, determined
the location of the town. There being no bridges in those days, gave the ford much
importance.” Bridges followed shortly after American settlement, though the first bridge
over Main Street collapsed and the second was swept away in a flood. The river was the
town’s source of essential water and its road to the world outside the Valley, but as the fate
of the early bridges showed, this resource could turn deadly. Napa’s location adjacent to
the river meant that it would repeatedly suffer from catastrophic flooding.37
Despite the sorry state of the town’s thoroughfares, there was apparently a passable
road leading up the valley quite early in the American era. William Heintz, in Wine
Country: History of Napa Valley, cites a traveler to Napa who stated that by 1852 there
was a road all the way up the middle of the valley. Originally a trail used by local Indians,
the County Road was first macadamized, or paved with crushed rock, around 1852, at least
as far as St. Helena. Highway 29 north of Napa still follows the general route of this early
Menefee, 52; Ibid., 49 – 50; U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Population Schedules of the 7th Census
of the United States, 1850: California, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1964),
Microfilm.312.09794; Menefee, 54 – 55.
36
37
Ibid., 54; Ibid., 46 – 47.
25
road. Many roads in Napa City and County remained unpaved, however, and in 1864
the Napa County Register referred to the local roads as “pathless in wet weather.”38
American Settlement – Agricultural Development
As Napa grew, it gradually took on the character of an established town and lost the
air of a frontier camp. The Californios began to lose their land and social position to
American interlopers, and the Indians that had survived needed to work as agricultural
laborers or servants to survive. Though the first American agriculturalists ran cattle on the
land like the Mexicans who came before them, wheat soon replaced hides and tallow as the
valley’s most important cash crop. By the 1860s farmers had planted orchards in the
southern part of the valley, and growers were experimenting with grapevines. In the 1870s
Uncle Sam’s Winery opened at Main Street and the Napa River in downtown Napa. Heintz
credits the expansion of the wine business to the Civil War’s disruption of European trade,
as well as to the publicity generated by California wine over the previous decade. During
this era, Napa was beginning to rival Sonoma as the best-known table wine producer in the
state. Though agriculture was the most important industry in the valley, there were also
cinnabar (mercury) mines and significant timber operations during the early American
settlement period.39
William F. Heintz, Wine Country: A History of Napa Valley, The Early Years: 1838 –
1920, (Santa Barbara: Capra Press., 1990), 40; Richard H.Dillon, Napa Valley Heyday, (San Francisco: The
Book Club of California, 2004), 288; Menefee, 60; Napa County Register, 27 February 1864.
38
39
Frank A. Leach, Recollections of a newspaperman: A Record of Life and Events in California (San
Francisco: Samuel Levinson, 1917), 56; Ibid., 59; Heintz, 112 – 113; Ibid., 114; Norton L. King, Napa
County, An Historical Overview, (Napa: Office of Napa County Superintendant of Schools, 1967), 54 – 58;
Weber, Napa, 37 – 44.
26
These labor-intensive industries were not only drawing speculators and
investors into the valley; they also created a strong local demand for workers. During the
first two decades of American settlement, Californios and the dwindling number of Indians
were able to supply much of Napa’s need for laborers. A handful of Chinese were present
from Napa’s foundation, but as the Native American population declined, the Chinese
community grew. Menefee states that Indians were numerous in Napa until about 1856.
Over the next decade the Chinese supplanted them as agricultural workers, miners, and
public works crews, and founded a settled community. By 1880, according to Yolanda
Beard, only fifty Wappo remained in Napa Valley. In addition to providing much of the
labor required to build the county, the Chinese were farmers and entrepreneurs. By 1886 a
Chinatown near the confluence of the river and creek boasted several houses as well as a
laundry, and a temple or “Joss House.”40
American Consolidation and Prosperity
While the Chinese population was supplanting the Indians, white Americans further
consolidated their position as the dominant class. The white population had exploded, and
by 1860 Napa City had 2,322 white residents. As agriculture began to prosper in Napa
County, so did its principal town, through which virtually every item produced in the
county was required to pass. Business owners began replacing the hastily constructed
wood-frame commercial buildings of Napa’s first decade with more permanent and
expensive structures of brick and stone. Public as well as commercial buildings
Menefee, 19; Ibid., 218 – 219; Yolanda S. Beard, The Wappo: A Report, (St. Helena, California:
Yolande S. Beard, 1977), 41; Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1886, (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress,
1983) Microfilm, Reel 37, Montague – Nelson, City of Napa beginning at 707.
40
27
exemplified this trend as the nineteenth century progressed. Perhaps none was a better
symbol of Napa’s “progress” than the Napa County Courthouse.41
Napa’s courthouse, though one of the town’s oldest extant buildings, is actually the
county’s third structure built for that purpose. The first, wooden, courthouse was quickly
outgrown, while the second was shoddily constructed, and its walls cracked in less than a
decade. Designed by prominent San Francisco architects Joseph and Samuel Newsome, the
Italianate courthouse was constructed in 1878. An imposing and graceful structure
befitting Napa’s status as the seat of government for the county, the courthouse was
originally adorned by a very large and ornate cupola. This was damaged in the 1906
earthquake and was removed in the decades following. Except for the removal of the
cupola, the building remains virtually unchanged today. Courthouse square is to this day
the focal point for county government, with the 1878 courthouse its visual symbol.42
The county had finally built a courthouse to last, but this investment was puny
compared to the money the state was about to pour into Napa. In 1875 the State of
California financed construction of the gigantic Napa State Hospital for the Insane just
south of town at Imola. The brick gothic-revival building, designed to be reminiscent of a
castle, boasted no less than seven spires. It cost $1.5 million to build, which would be over
$29 million today. The asylum significantly boosted the local economy, both in the
construction and operation phases. Communities all over the state had competed to house
41
U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Population Schedules of the 8th Census of the United States, 1860:
California (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), Microfilm 312.097974 U.S.; David
Kernberger, Mark Strong’s Napa Valley, (St. Helena: Historic Photos, Publishers, 1978), 27
42
(1978).
King, Napa County, 29; Kernberger, 27 – 31; Diane Christman, Historic Resources Inventory,
28
the asylum, as this infusion of tax dollars amounted to a hefty subsidy for the chosen
city. Napa won based on its idyllic climate, among other advantages. The asylum was
virtually its own town, and included an underground railway system, farms, its own wharf
for off-loading freight from the river, and on-site staff housing. Despite its brick towers,
the asylum building suffered only minor damage in the 1906 earthquake. By 1948,
however, the asylum was condemned as too old-fashioned. It had been constructed to last,
however, and fourteen ineffectual hours with a wrecking ball soon gave way to dynamite,
with which the forces of modernization ultimately prevailed. Despite the loss of the main
structure, many of the historic buildings and landscapes associated with the asylum survive
today, and the site continues to be used as a state mental hospital.43
Grand government buildings were not enough on which to build the local economy,
and the Napa community needed at this point to substantially improve its transportation
infrastructure. In addition to the County Road, the “East Side Road” or “Old Back Road”
followed the Napa River up the valley. This was an important alternate route to the east of
the river, especially during winter when the main road was prone to flooding. The county
built new roads connecting the Old Back Road to the eastern portion of the county in the
1860s, which allowed grain grown in the more remote stretches of Napa County to reach
the market. For the remainder of the nineteenth century substantial wagonloads of wheat
came down the eastern route to Napa’s entrepôt. As fruit, and grapes in particular, began to
43
King, Napa County, 6 – 7; The Inflation Calculator, http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi,
accessed 18 November 2009; Lauren Coodley, The Transformation of an American Town, (Charleston:
Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 35; Kernberger, 82; Weber, Napa, 100.
29
supplant wheat in Napa County, vineyards and wineries sprang up adjacent to both
county roads. 44
In 1865 the railroad was extended to Napa from Soscol, a village a few miles to the
south, providing yet another alternative to roads and the river. County government, in
alliance with railroad ownership, planned to extend the rail line north to Calistoga, but
local voters defeated the proposal. Napa residents felt that the railroad threatened their
position as depot for all the produce of the county, and feared that the railroad was an
attempt to cut the city out of its shipping profits. In 1869 the railroad built the line over
local objections. The railroad went in on the west side of the river near the county road,
strengthening the tendency for investors to build the most impressive wineries near that
highway. Ironically, despite people’s fears, the railroad only strengthened Napa’s position
as a transportation hub.45
As the nineteenth century progressed, local agriculture continued to expand, while
quicksilver mining provided some economic diversity. With its strategic location at the
navigable head of the river and railroad lines running north and south, Napa was poised to
become an economic powerhouse. Napa’s lucrative tannery industry was built on its access
to transportation infrastructure, as well as two essential raw materials for tanning: animal
hides and abundant water. Sawyer Tannery was the first, opening adjacent to the river in
1869. It was followed in 1874 by Napa City Tannery, and in 1876 the California Glove
Factory began producing gloves from the available leather. The river was essential both for
44
Dillon, 292; Leach, 56; Ibid., 59; Mrs. Y. M. Hardin, Early History of Pope Valley, (unpublished
manuscript, March 1941), 2.
45
Ira L. Swett and Harry C. Aitken, Jr., The Napa Valley Route: Electric Trains and Steamers
(Glendale: Interurban Press, 1975), 16; Dillon, 130; Ibid., 188; King, Napa County, 35 – 36.
30
transportation of tannery products as well as for disposal of the toxic waste generated
by the tanning process. Though the town’s economy depended on the river, flooding was a
threat in every rainy winter. Toward the close of the century, in 1896, the river showed her
dangerous side, and Napa suffered a devastating flood.46
With county government centered on Brown and Third streets, and industry
clustered near the river at the foot of Main Street, commercial buildings began to spread
north along Main. By the 1870s the early wood frame structures had mostly been
supplanted by stone and brick. The buildings at the center of downtown were primarily
Italianate in style with uniform frontages, though some scattered construction in wood
continued. The uniformity of scale and massing during this era contrasted with diversity of
facing material and ornamentation to provide a visually attractive commercial district.
Banks, hotels, and retail stores were built to serve the town and surrounding countryside as
the wealth of the region increased. Meanwhile, Napans were also constructing churches,
schools, and houses immediately adjacent to downtown. By 1873 speculators had made at
least six additions to the original city plat.47
In the 1880s the Napa River bristled with wharves, and an industrial district
boasting tanneries, warehouses, and mills lined both sides of the river south of the
downtown retail district. Farming continued to expand, and though wine grapes were
important, there were also many acres planted to fruit and nut orchards. In 1883 farmers
introduced the French prune to Napa, which would come to dominate in the area north of
46
King, 18; Coodley, 29; Ibid., 39; David Wolper, Chairman, Napa, the Valley of Legends: 150 Years
of History, Historical Fact Sheets, (Napa, California, 1997), 56.
47
Christman; Kernberger, 28 – 32; Menefee, 54.
31
town, and would remain an important crop until the 1960s. Several dairies on the edge
of town provided milk products for Napans.48
Early Twentieth Century
By the turn of the twentieth century Napa had grown to a population of over 5,000
residents. The name of the town had evolved over the years; at some point its spelling was
changed from “Nappa City” to “Napa City,” and gradually, the “city” was dropped. By
1900 the town was known simply as “Napa.” The first years of the twentieth century were
difficult ones for the wine counties. Phylloxera, a vine-killing root louse, infested the
valley, killing thousands of grape vines and threatening not only growers’ profits but the
entire local economy. Many local farmers responded to this threat by tearing out
grapevines and planting fruit trees, significantly shrinking the tonnage of grapes available
for winemaking.49
During the early twentieth century, Napa’s manufacturing sector remained strong
despite the problems in the wine business. A shirt factory and a second glove factory
opened near the river. Napa’s economy was somewhat insulated from hard times by its still
strategic location vis a vis the transportation infrastructure. This position was further
strengthened in 1907 when an interurban rail line opened between Napa and Vallejo. Later
extensions to St. Helena and Calistoga made traveling to Napa increasingly easier.50
48
49
Kernberger, 2; King, Napa County, 48; Coodley, 39.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1891; Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1901; Coodley, 39; King, Napa
County, 48.
50
Lin Weber and the Napa Valley Museum, Images of America: Napa Valley Wine Country
(Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004), 96 – 97; Swett, 22.
32
The San Francisco earthquake caused destruction so widespread that it made
1906 the “Year One” of Northern California history. The force with which the quake shook
Napa, however, was substantially diminished by its distance from the epicenter, and the
local devastation was nowhere near the scale of San Francisco’s. Though people were
injured, there were no deaths. Many buildings were seriously damaged, among them the
Napa Valley Opera House (1879) on Main Street. Chimneys all fell down over town, and
almost all of the many Victorian-era ornamental towers that adorned buildings, including
the courthouse cupola, were damaged or destroyed. Because this natural force hit Napa
more lightly than other regional communities, the town did not have to be virtually rebuilt
in the same way that San Francisco and other towns did. The Napa Downtown Association
claims that Napa has more pre-1906 buildings than any other Bay Area municipality.51
By the twentieth century Napa’s once vibrant Chinese community was in decline.
Like many other towns in California, Napa’s anti-Chinese agitators during constituted a
vocal minority in the late nineteenth century. Prodded by white working class fears of
labor competition and by political demagoguery, Congress passed a series of Chinese
exclusion acts. The Chinese population in Napa shrank in response to restrictions on
immigration and acts of persecution against their members, and by the first years of the
twentieth century farmers could no longer count on having enough Chinese laborers to dig
their wine caves and harvest their crops. Italian immigrants began to take the place of the
Chinese as laborers of all kinds. Bringing wine-growing experience from the old country,
Italians began to dominate that business. Though the community was subject to
51
Weber, Lin, Roots of the Present: Napa Valley 1900 to 1950, (St. Helena, California:
Wine Ventures Publishing, 2001), 57; Christman; Napa Downtown Association website,
http://napadowntown.com/history.html, accessed 20 October 2009.
33
discrimination from Anglo Americans, they were not persecuted to the same extent as
the Chinese or the Indians. Many Italian laborers were able to save enough to purchase
farms, homes, or businesses in and around Napa. This community has persisted, and
remains an important force in the wine business today. Their legacy is also inscribed on the
built environment in the form of plaques that bear the names of the buildings’ original
owners, many of whom were Italian.52
As manufacturing, agriculture and commerce continued to grow, residential
construction reflected the population growth that accompanied these activities. In 1905 the
city established Fuller Park on the western border of Napa’s oldest residential
neighborhood. Immediately to the south of downtown, the district was already well
established, with impressive mansions on many corner lots. Many of the larger lots were
subdivided in the first two decades of the twentieth century, adding more and smaller
single family homes to the neighborhood. New neighborhoods were also constructed
during the early years of the century: Spencer’s addition to the northwest, West Napa just
to the west of Fuller Park, and East Napa across the river. East Napa’s growth was
stimulated by the opening of an interurban rail line between Vallejo and Calistoga with a
station in East Napa. The modest single-family houses in East Napa attracted many
members of the growing Italian working class. The neighborhood became heavily Italian,
and retains this ethnic character today.53
52
Weber, Roots, 31; Weber, Napa, 87.
Donald S. Napoli, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Napa Abajo/Fuller Park
Historic District,1996, Section 7, 2; Ibid., 4; Page & Turnbull, Inc., Historic Context Statement and Detailed
Property Survey for the Soscol Gateway/East Napa Neighborhood, (Prepared for Napa Community
Redevelopment Agency, 2009), 3.
53
34
The advent of World War I brought hardship for many Napa residents, in
particular local German Americans. Though as a group they had fit in well with the
mainstream before the war, hostilities with Germany brought widespread paranoia
regarding anyone who spoke German. Those who did not enthusiastically support the war
were especially liable to be persecuted. Napans also lost their lives in the war and in the
influenza pandemic that followed on the heels of the conflict.54
Prohibition and Depression
The Great War was a significant event for Napa, but a political battle played out on
the national stage would affect the Valley far more deeply. When the federal government
banned the production and sale of alcohol, the devastation in Napa was almost as severe as
the 1906 earthquake – and equally outside local control. Government officials immediately
padlocked the largest wineries, throwing the local economy into chaos. Although they had
shuttered the biggest and best known wineries, federal agents were not able to control what
happened at every small vineyard. Perhaps unsurprisingly, local law enforcement officials
(who frequently had family members in the wine business),were not enthusiastic Volstead
Act enforcers. The Napa area produced beer and brandy in addition to wine during
Prohibition. This was, ironically, the birth of the Napa Valley tourism industry. With paved
roads now stretching from Vallejo to St. Helena, Bay Area tourists could drive up for a day
to get away from the San Francisco fog. They would bring along a few jugs to fill, and
Napa Valley’s back roads were often thronged with wine tourists during Prohibition. In
one of the county’s early efforts to attract heritage tourism, the county supervisors changed
54
Weber, Roots, 112 – 137.
35
the name of the Old Back Road to the Silverado Trail during this era, in attempt to
capitalize on the history of the Silverado Mine.55
Basalt Rock Company, a rock quarrying business, opened just south of Napa in
1920. Although the Great Depression struck Napa early when grape prices collapsed in
1928, the economic effects were not as severe as in other places because many locals were
employed at Basalt and at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo. In 1938 the Basalt yard
expanded, adding a barge operation that it used to ship the rock down the river. During
World War II the company became a defense contractor, building a shipbuilding works and
dry-dock. It produced not only barges, but tankers and salvage-rescue tugs. Prohibition had
been repealed in 1933, and before America entered the war Napa’s wine business was on
track to make a comeback. In 1938 the county paved the Silverado Trail all the way up to
Calistoga, making it easier for tourists to explore the wineries of the former Old Back
Road.56
Well into the twentieth century the river continued to be a transportation and
recreation resource as well as a waste disposal system for factories and households. By
1930, locals were complaining about the river’s disgusting filth, and the mayor led a group
of businessmen in a clean-up campaign. Napa’s Chinatown, situated on low-lying ground
between the river and creek, was a casualty of this effort. The city relocated the seven
families still residing at China Point, razed Chinatown’s buildings, and turned the area into
a park. During the twentieth century the spit of land on which Chinatown had stood
Weber, Roots, 148 – 175, Earl Thollander, Back Roads of California (Menlo Park: Lane Publishing
Co., 1977) 133.
56
Weber, Roots, 206; Ibid., 213; Coodley, 54 – 55; Weber, Napa, 101; Todd. L. Shulman, Napa
County, 84; Coodley , 56 – 57; Weber, Roots, 230.
55
36
gradually eroded, and twenty-first century flood control work submerged the remains of
the peninsula. Today no trace of the Chinese community remains in Napa’s built
environment, and even the ground on which this significant community has been
obliterated.57
World War II and the Modern Era
The 1940s introduced explosive growth to Napa. Newcomers were flooding the
West Coast in search of defense jobs, and Napa, because of its proximity to Mare Island
Naval Shipyard, was in the thick of this great migration. Mare Island employed 6,700
people at the start of 1940; by November of 1941 the shipyard had 22,444 employees. In
1942, Napa was one of the fastest growing towns in the whole Western United States.
Between 1940 and 1950 Napa’s population nearly doubled, from 7740 at the start of the
decade to 13,570 by its end.58
Though Napa benefited economically from war work, finding housing for its
increased population was a particular challenge during World War II. Between 1946 and
1951 seventy-one subdivisions were constructed, including several in the Westwood
neighborhood and Glenwood Street within Spencer’s Addition. These projects added
hundreds of modest single-family homes, but they also spread the urbanized portion of the
city and began to encroach on agricultural land. The federal government constructed a
housing project at the Basalt plant for service members and veterans called Shipyard
57
58
King, Napa County, 64; Weber, Roots, 189.
Weber, Roots, 262 – 263; Ibid., 249; Coodley, 58 – 59; Ketteringham, 196.
37
Acres. In 1948 it housed 1,400 people and had its own school, post office, and grocery
store, but the entire neighborhood was demolished shortly after the war.59
The population influx was a symptom of broad change occurring in the local
community that mirrored state- and nation-wide trends. Women had entered the workforce
in unprecedented numbers as males were drafted overseas and war work demanded more
laborers. Though this was a boon in terms of the working family’s budget as well as the
local economy, it left many children suddenly unsupervised. Napa, like other towns where
mothers had gone to work in defense industry factories, experienced a serious jump in
juvenile delinquency during the war. This included a near-riot on Halloween, 1944, when
500 young people threw garbage at police and broke out of the police station after being
arrested.60
An improvement to Napa’s transportation infrastructure at the end of the1940s was
to have a significant impact on the town and its surrounding countryside. Highway 29
wound through downtown before routing north-bound drivers along Jefferson, which took
a curve north of Napa High School, then carried on north into Napa Valley. By 1950 Route
29 ran up the west side of Napa in its modern location, though traffic coming from Vallejo
still had to come up Soscol. The way traffic was increasingly routed away from downtown
Napa during the second half of the twentieth century contributed greatly to Napa’s inability
to capitalize on the valley’s tourism potential.61
59
Ketteringham, 193; Virginia Hanrahan, Historical Napa Valley, (unpublished manuscript, circa
1948), 15.
60
Weber, Roots, 263 – 264; Ibid., 280.
61
Weber, Roots, 231; Ibid., 234; Thomas Brothers Maps, Napa County Map, 1940 - 1945; Thomas
Brothers Maps, Napa County Map, 1950 – 1955.
38
Despite the population growth and robust postwar economy, the 1950s seems to
have been a period during which downtown Napa began to decline as a commercial center.
Though he acknowledges that it had not been replaced by competing newer shopping
areas, William James Ketteringham notes what he calls “urban decay” in the city’s core,
including a number of vacant storefronts. The author suggests that Napa’s orientation
shifted during this period from county agriculture to the increasingly urbanized and
expanding Bay Area. Downtown, at this point, was also beginning to suffer from parking
problems, as residential areas sprang up outside walking distance and more people relied
on cars for daily transportation. Construction of the new City Hall on School Street in 1952
seems to have done little to stem the tide of downtown’s decline.62
One other proximate cause for downtown Napa’s postwar decline must have been
the realignment of the highway. Northbound travelers who once had to pass downtown
restaurants and shops on their way to St. Helena could now stay on a relatively straight
road that avoided the congestion of downtown. The highway did not even pass very close
to downtown, and today’s freeway, with a similar alignment, is 1.19 miles from Main
Street. Though only a drive of a few minutes, it is enough to eliminate many impulsive
stops and curtail retail traffic. This infrastructure change reversed Napa’s traditional
position as gatekeeper to the valley. For decades, as the upper valley grew wealthy on
tourism dollars, Napa was known as a place one passed by on the way to taste wine in
Napa Valley.63
62
63
Ketteringham, 199; Wolpner, Valley of Legends, 68.
Mapquest,
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1c=Napa&1s=CA&1a=1st+St+%26+State+Hwy+29&1z=94558&1y=US&
39
The wine business did not recover fully from the disruptions of Prohibition and
World War II for at least a decade after the war’s end. By the late 1960’s wine was again
dominating the Valley, as Napa’s reputation spread and growers realized that wine grapes
were more profitable than prunes. County agriculture was threatened, however, by urban
sprawl. Ironically, the very success of the wine business exacerbated the problem by
transforming a sleepy agricultural region into a desirable destination for second homes. In
1968 the Napa County Board of Supervisors passed its controversial agricultural preserve
measure. The first regulation of its kind in the state, the agricultural preserve severely
curtailed development outside established city limits in Napa County. Though it was
extremely controversial because of its restriction of property rights, and though it would be
repeatedly challenged over the years, the agricultural preserve has been remarkably
successful at preserving Napa County’s landscape and agricultural character. James
Conaway has said that it “would prove to be one of the most important things to have
happened to Napa Valley, as important in its way as the phylloxera epidemic and
Prohibition, except that its effects were positive.”64
A few short years after the agricultural preserve was formed, local activists began
working to set aside more public open space. In 1974 the city purchased the land that
would become Westwood Hills park from a developer that had intended to build 400
1l=38.299825&1g=122.30269&1v=INTERSECTION&2c=Napa&2s=CA&2a=1st+St+%26+Main+St&2z=94559&2y=US&2l=
38.29919&2g=-122.28547&2v=INTERSECTION, accessed 30 October 2009.
64
City of Napa, City of Napa General Plan Map, 1968; James Conaway, Napa: The Story of an
American Eden (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990, 82 – 92.
40
houses on it. The city purchased Alston park around the same time, and today both
undeveloped parks are heavily used by Napa residents.65
The changes that the 1960s brought to the nation came slowly to Napa. Though
immigration had increased during the strong post-war economy of the 1950s and Mexicans
had begun to replace Italians as vineyard and cellar workers, Napa remained a whitedominated town. Napa was known as a town where African Americans were made to feel
unwelcome after sundown, and black employees at Napa State hospital lived either in
Vallejo or in on-site housing. In 1963 a fair housing advocate and local minister’s house
was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan, apparently in retaliation for his activism on behalf
of racial equality. Napa’s population, however, continued to grow, and by 1970 Napa was
home to 37,000 people.66
65
66
Coodley, 131.
Coodley, 122; Ibid., 124; Ibid., 128.
41
Chapter 3
REDEVELOPMENT AND PRESERVATION IN NAPA, CALIFORNIA
The Redevelopment Era
While the county was taking radical steps toward preserving the Napa Valley’s
rural way of life, the City of Napa began taking its own radical measures. The city’s
efforts, however, were in pursuit of change and modernization rather than the conservation
of what already existed. By the close of the 1960s the Napa City Council was controlled by
a group that believed strongly that Napa’s future growth required wholesale changes
downtown. The City Council formed the Napa Community Redevelopment Agency and
made the revitalization of downtown its mission. The push for downtown redevelopment
coincided with, and was a catalyst for, the beginning of the local architectural preservation
movement that mirrored the strenuous efforts to preserve Napa’s rural heritage that were
already underway.
Ironically, by the time redevelopment reached Napa the passage of NHPA had
already signaled a nation-wide shift away from wholesale demolition of cities, though
perhaps it is unsurprising that a medium-sized town in a rural county would lag behind the
curve on any cultural trend. San Francisco city planning consultants Hall and Goodhue
were probably in closer touch than local government with emerging practices across the
country when they advised retention of over fifty downtown buildings as early as 1971.
Despite this professional study, demolition proceeded at a breathtaking pace well into the
1970s. As large and small cities across the nation had done during the preceding decade,
Napa decided that downtown revitalization meant demolishing historic structures. National
42
Register listing did not protect buildings, and at least two listed early twentieth-century
department stores were destroyed. In addition, redevelopment demolished several
nineteenth-century commercial buildings as well as the entire west side of Main between
First and Pearl. The wrecking ball also narrowly missed several buildings considered
irreplaceable landmarks today. A glossy Redevelopment publication from 1973 bragged
that forty-nine sites had been cleared or contracted for clearance in the nine-block target
area.67
One major project that was planned but never took place was the East Side
Freeway. For years, Napa City and County plans included a proposal to construct a second
freeway immediately east of Soscol boulevard. This plan was to include a crosstown
expressway that would have roughly followed the alignment of the residential Vallejo
Street. This potentially destructive project was never begun, and eventually the city
abandoned the plan.68
Redevelopment was by far the most destructive force in Napa’s century and a half
history. However, the agency was responsible for construction as well as demolition
downtown. A “semi-mall” on First and Brown Street, the First Street Plaza, and a nearly
70,000 foot Mervyn’s store, as well as 195 off-street parking spaces, were among the
projects that had broken ground by 1973. The Redevelopment Agency put considerable
Christman; Hall and Goodhue Architecture and City Planners, “Historic/Architectural Preservation
Study,” (Prepared for Napa Community Redevelopment Agency, 1971), 10 – 12; Kernberger, 21, Ibid., 23 –
25; Paul R. Gore, Chairman, “The Making of Napa’s New Era: Third Year Action Report,” (Napa
Community Redevelopment Agency, 1973), unpaginated.
67
68
City of Napa, City of Napa General Plan Map, 1968.
43
energy into a project they considered in the city’s best interest. Their published
pamphlet enthused:
The making of a new Napa era is all about us. New buildings are rising up to house
the city’s major stores and smaller shops. Older buildings, many of early Napa
vintage, are undergoing face-liftings and interior renovations, putting them in step
with today and guaranteeing them a long-term role in the city’s future. Drab
thoroughfares are being dressed up as tree-lined malls, topped by an exciting new
plaza.69
Though it is easy in hindsight (and popular locally) to criticize redevelopment’s
failures, the philosophy that informed its activities was far from mischievous. The
Redevelopment Agency and City Council were responding to a real decline in the
downtown business district’s appearance and economic power. The deterioration of the
area fed fears, which were by no means irrational, that downtown would be completely
supplanted by a shopping center elsewhere in the county. A 1975 Charles Hall Page &
Associates Historic Preservation Study summed up the strategy that had informed the
attempt to remake downtown.
The basic proposal was to redevelop the downtown area into a regional shopping
center. It projected demand for four or more major department stores as anchor
tenants. . . The idea was to pre-empt the future development of a major regional
shopping center elsewhere in Napa County by satisfying the market demand in
downtown Napa on Redevelopment Agency land.
Though the study acknowledges the very real need to confront this danger, it suggests that
wholesale redevelopment was not a recipe for success. Downtown, Page argued, could
never compete with a suburban mall by attempting to become a mall, but by being an
attractive and accessible downtown. Page suggested solutions such as decking existing
69
The Making of Napa’s New Era, unpaged.
44
parking lots to replace the earlier policy of wholesale lot clearance. This same study
notes no vacancies in renovated downtown buildings in 1975, while there were four in new
Redevelopment buildings. Interestingly, this study dismissed tourism as a potential source
of significant income for Napa. In addition to this professional critique, the downtown
activities of the early 1970s, which included the relocation of both businesses and families,
spurred significant community backlash, and by the later years of that decade a local
preservation movement had formed and become active.70
1980 to the Present
By the end of the 1970s the transition from prunes to wine grapes in Napa County
was almost complete. The City of Napa was increasingly oriented toward the Bay Area,
and its suburbs continued to creep north- and westward despite the agricultural preserve’s
inhibition of development. Downtown seemed to be caught in a cycle of revitalization and
deterioration. The city council approved construction of the Cinedome multiplex in 1983,
with which the Art Deco Uptown theater on 2nd Street could not compete. In 1986
Carithers department store closed, just fourteen years after its Redevelopment-era
construction. Winter 1986 also brought a devastating “100-year flood” to Napa, only
ninety years after the previous deluge of such magnitude. Two-thirds of Napa businesses
were damaged, 250 homes destroyed, and three people killed in this catastrophic disaster.71
70
Charles Hall Page & Associates, Urban and Environmental Planning & Design, San Francisco,
“Summary Report: Parkway Plaza Historic Preservation Study,” (Prepared for the Napa Community
Redevelopment Agency, 1975), 34; Ibid., 27; Ibid., 31; Ibid., 37.
71
Coodley, 132; Ibid., 140; Ibid., 142.
45
By the late 1980s local government’s revitalization attempts emphasized
building preservation over redevelopment. “Main Street Napa,” an undated study from
circa 1987, discussed land use, retail strategy, and downtown urban design. The authors of
this document assumed that Napa’s historic commercial buildings should be reused,
demonstrating how consensus had shifted in favor of historic preservation. The city’s
strategy at this point involved the active promotion of Napa’s unique architecture,
improvement of the pedestrian environment, and orientation toward the river as an
amenity. The attitude toward tourism had also changed radically. The study states that
Napa had “allowed neighboring communities to the north to usurp Napa’s potential tourist
market and identity.” It blamed this on the difficulty and distance of the passage from the
freeway to downtown, pointing out the three turns required before a vehicle can reach the
street that leads to downtown. The second factor cited was Napa’s failure to create “a
unique identity or established identifiable tourist attractions and markets” despite its
famous name and beautiful architecture.72
Post-cold war military base closings hit California hard, and Napa was no
exception. Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed in 1993, pulling a major economic support
from under the town. In a further blow to the downtown core, Target, Office Depot, and
Home Depot stores were developed in south Napa in 1996. Woolworth’s, J.C. Penney’s,
and local institutions Merrils Drugstore and Brewers were among the downtown casualties
Author unknown, “Main Street Napa: Land Use and Retail Strategy, Streetscape Design Concept,
Urban Design Guidelines,” (circa 1987), 3; Ibid., 5.
72
46
in the years immediately following the opening of the “big box stores.” In 1998,
however, a flood control measure passed that has begun a transformation in central Napa.73
The Napa Flood and Water Conservation District estimates that Napa County has
suffered $542 million in flood damage since 1986. Since 1998 a half-cent sales tax has
funded an extremely ambitious flood control and river restoration project designed to make
the City of Napa safe from a 100-year flood event. Despite questions about the success of
flood control, the steps that have been taken so far to protect downtown have gone a long
way toward reassuring property investors, and the local development environment has
changed radically since the early 1990s. In October, 2008 the Redevelopment Agency
released a statement that estimated a total of $519,013,000 of combined public and private
investment in the downtown commercial core between 1999 and 2008. This work has
included not only flood control work, but several new hotels, the Oxbow Public Market,
and numerous smaller projects. The construction projects have also spurred small adaptive
reuse and renovations in the neighborhoods adjacent to downtown.74
Through business and development cycles the City of Napa and its rural
surroundings continue to evolve. Though flood control work has brought hope and an orgy
of development, as of 2009 the work is only 40% complete. After millions of dollars in
work, much of Napa flooded once again on New Years Eve 2005, and it is as yet unclear
whether the town will ever be safe from the vagaries of the river in winter. Downtown is in
73
74
Coodley, 144; Ibid., 147.
Napa Flood and Water Conservation District,
http://www.co.napa.ca.us/GOV/Departments/DeptPage.asp?DID=6&LID=1691, accessed 1 November 2009;
Napa Flood and Water Conservation District,
http://www.co.napa.ca.us/GOV/Departments/DeptPage.asp?DID=6&LID=1692, accessed 1 November 2009;
Napa Flood and Water Conservation District,
http://www.co.napa.ca.us/GOV/Departments/DeptFAQ.asp?DID=6, accessed 1 November 2009.
47
flux, much as it was thirty-five years ago. Mervyns’ closed a year ago and was recently
replaced by Kohl’s. The area has seen a massive 600,000 square feet of new construction
in just a few years, but landowner George Altamura continues to hold several key historic
properties vacant. The Oxbow Market seems to be a success, but next door Copia stands
shuttered. For better or worse, Napa has made the hoped-for transition to tourist town, and
locals complain that downtown has nothing for them. While a decade ago there was little
connection between the wine country and the City of Napa, today downtown boasts
fourteen locations for wine-tasting. What remains to be seen is whether this era’s
development will stand the test of time like Napa’s nineteenth-century architectural
heritage, or need to be redeveloped all over again a decade down the road.75
The Formation of Preservation Non-Profits in Napa
Like the movement in support of the agricultural preserve, Napa’s nascent historic
preservation movement attracted some unlikely supporters. Main Street merchants, for
example, formed a group called Citizens against the Destruction of Napa. This group
fought the controversial redevelopment clock tower, a battle they ultimately lost when the
widely reviled time-keeping wooden sculpture was installed on the First Street Plaza. This
group was also one arm of a popular movement to save the Opera House, which by
the1970s had not held a performance for sixty years, and was slated for destruction. By the
75
Napa Register online,
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.napavalleyregister.com/content/articles/2008/10/05/ne
ws/local/doc48e861b50f4c8105126850.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2008/10/
05/news/local/doc48e861b50f4c8105126850.txt&usg=__D7m1a5UZA29fBMs74M2CrKMayM0=&h=399&
w=600&sz=83&hl=en&start=14&tbnid=YpVGOPCn88AmyM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq
%3Ddowntown%2Bnapa%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBS_enUS265US2
65%26sa%3DG, accessed 3 November, 2009; Napa Downtown website,
http://www.napadowntown.com/wine_card.html, accessed 3 November, 2009.
48
middle of the decade a strong majority of local residents backed downtown
preservation over building clearance and redevelopment. In 1975 a citizens voted in a citywide referendum to maintain the city boundaries without annexing increased area, and to
retain downtown as the town’s principal shopping district.76
Napa County Landmarks was formed in response to redevelopment, and is still an
important player in local preservation today. Originally focused on the historic buildings of
the City of Napa and called simply “Napa Landmarks,” the local non-profit was founded
incorporated in 1974 to promote preservation in the wake of the destruction of much of
Napa’s historic downtown. In its first few years of existence, Landmarks started a historic
walking tour program and saved several houses from the wrecking ball through purchase
and rehabilitation.77
But Napa Landmarks’ most significant contribution to preservation in the 1970s
was its effort to survey the historic portion of the city and create a Historic Resource
Inventory (HRI.) Landmarks received grants from both the city and the state, and used the
money to perform a historic resource survey of Napa. The survey was conducted primarily
by volunteers over an eighteen-month period from 1977 to 1978. City staff updated and
added to the volunteer-generated list on an as-needed basis over the years. Though the
effort produced a list of several hundred significant buildings, consultant San
Buenaventura Research Associates of Santa Paula pointed out flaws in the methodology
from a professional perspective: “This data was evidently not collected systematically, and
76
77
Coodley, 149; Weber, Napa, 58; Coodley, 150.
Napa County Landmarks website,
http://www.napacountylandmarks.org/popUps/aboutUs/historicTimeline.html, accessed 31 October 2009.
49
numerous gaps were apparent.” Despite its flaws, this survey represented many
hundreds of volunteer hours, and marked a shift to a more pro-active, data driven form of
preservation. This information still forms the basis for the HRI that is currently used by the
Planning Division.78
Napa Landmarks continued to focus on disseminating preservation awareness and
on saving threatened buildings. In 1978 Landmarks was first involved in the preservation
of a downtown commercial building when the Oberon Bar was slated for demolition. This
Art Deco building, a rare architectural style in Napa County, was not only historically
significant in its own right, its preservation laid the groundwork for Landmarks’
involvement in the preservation of other landmark downtown buildings, such as the effort
to rehabilitate the Opera House. In the early 1980s, the organization faltered as city grant
money dried up, but after a fallow period Napa Landmarks re-organized and continued its
activities. In recognition of the symbiosis of rural and urban in Napa County, and in
response to historic resources outside city limits that were under threat, the organization
changed its name in 1986 to Napa County Landmarks. In the past two decades Landmarks
has purchased and seismically retrofitted buildings, as well as working to receive NRHP
recognition for Napa County’s historic stone bridges.79
The restoration of the Napa County Opera House, though more high-profile than
most individual buildings, is illustrative of how the different interested local parties can
work together to save a historic resource. Built in 1879, the Opera House sustained serious
Ibid.; San Buenaventura Research Associates of Santa Paula, California, “Napa City-Wide Survey,”
(Prepared for the City of Napa, 1995), 2.
78
79
Napa County Landmarks website,
http://www.napacountylandmarks.org/popUps/aboutUs/historicTimeline.html, accessed 31 October 2009.
50
damage in the 1906 earthquake and had been closed by 1916. By the 1970s the Opera
House had already been given up for lost by many locals, few of whom could remember a
time when it was not boarded up and decrepit. Even consultant Charles Hall Page
suggested that the Opera House could not realistically be preserved and predicted its
eventual demolition. In 1985 a non-profit organization formed to save the Opera House.
Seed money from Landmarks got the ball rolling, but the restoration process was
extremely painstaking and expensive. In 1997 $2.2 million from Robert and Magrit Biever
Mondavi spurred the project on, and it was finally completed in 2003. Today, the Opera
House is taken for granted as an irreplaceable community resource. One of the last
remaining second story theaters west of the Mississippi and a beautiful exemplar of
nineteenth-century Italianate architecture, it is also a unique functional performance space
in a community that, even today, lacks other resources of this type.80
The Formation of the Cultural Heritage Commission
The City Council of the redevelopment era, in response to public pressure to
preserve rather than demolish buildings, created its Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC)
in 1975. Its duties included maintenance of the HRI, nomination of historic buildings and
districts, advising the council on historic preservation, and public education regarding
history and cultural heritage. The CHC is still an important advisory board for Napa City
government. The volunteer board performs design review for Napa’s CLG, advises the
City Council, and informs the public regarding historic resources. Three members of the
Charles Hall Page & Associates, Urban and Environmental Planning & Design, San Francisco, “The
Semorile and Winship Buildings,” (Prepared for the City of Napa, 1976), 16; Napa County Landmarks
website, http://www.napacountylandmarks.org/popUps/aboutUs/historicTimeline.html, accessed 31 October
2009; Napa Valley Opera House, http://nvoh.org/index.php/venue/history, accessed 31 October 2009.
80
51
board must be architects or preservation professionals, while any member of the
interested public may fill the other two positions.81
The establishment of the CHC, the formation of Landmarks, and the effort to create
an HRI together constituted a watershed after which Napa’s preservation has been more
active and robust. Various preservation measures have followed the initial burst of energy
from the 1970s. Among the most important are various survey efforts including, 1978,
1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998. Some of these projects were in-depth intensive level
surveys focused on particular neighborhoods, such as the 1993 survey of the Fuller Park
District, which documented the neighborhood on a house-by-house basis and determined
district eligibility to the National Register. The survey presented to the CHC by consultant
San Buenaventura in the beginning of 1995, by contrast, attempted a broader but less
detailed windshield assessment of a much larger area and updated the HRI.82
The 1995 updated HRI was a considerably more sophisticated planning tool than
the one created in 1978. The consultant attempted to use quantitative methodology, and
ranked individual buildings based on architectural quality, age, and integrity. They also
solicited local opinion, in the form of CHC input, regarding which buildings were most
important. San Buenaventura evaluated over 6,000 properties, including nearly half of
those they looked at in contiguous Historic Resource Planning Areas (HRPAS). The
number of buildings deemed significant by the consultant was substantially greater than
81
City of Napa Website,
http://74.205.120.199/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=561, accessed 31 October
2009.
82
Ibid., http://74.205.120.199/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=361&Itemid=602,
accessed 31 October 2009, San Buenaventura Research Associates, 1 – 2.
52
those listed on the earlier HRI or on city estimates. The survey was adopted by the city
in 1997, and the new HRI replaced the 1978 HRI.83
The surveys have been instrumental in city designation of two historic districts: the
Fuller Park/Abajo district, which was listed on the National Register in 1996, and the
Calistoga Avenue district, which was accorded local landmark status more recently. Fuller
Park contains over 600 resources, nearly half of which are considered contributing.
Calistoga Avenue is a smaller district of only two dozen or so resources, but both
neighborhoods have had considerable success in preservation and enjoy broad community
support. The CHC adjudicates certificates of appropriateness when property owners in
these neighborhoods wish to make alterations.84
Despite local successes in preserving individual landmarks, creating protected
districts of houses, and documenting local resources, preserving historic resources in Napa
continues to require vigilance and hard work. Though an HRI is an essential planning tool,
Napa’s HRI is once again outmoded and difficult to use effectively. HRI documentation in
Napa has never kept pace with current methodology, and though this HRI is an
improvement on the original, it still features many lacunae. There are resources and even
whole neighborhoods that are potentially eligible for National Register listing and that
have never been documented. Many build dates are incorrect. Still other buildings have
aged into historic significance in the fourteen years since the survey was adopted.
Ibid., 3 – 7; Page & Turnbull, Inc., San Francisco, “Heritage Napa City-Wide Historic Context
Statement,” (Prepared for the City of Napa, 2009), 5.
83
84
Ibid., 5 – 6.
53
The most serious flaw in the HRI, however, is the fact that determinations of
historic significance were based on a scoring device termed “Visual Evidence of
Significance” (VES). Apparently developed by consultant San Buenaventura, VES and
construction dates were combined to arrive at a map score (MS). This methodology
assigned high scores primarily to architecturally stunning buildings from the nineteenth
century. Only buildings in historic districts that were assigned a “one” or a “two” in this
survey are required to undergo design review before architectural alterations are
performed. Many significant vernacular and twentieth-century resources have been ignored
completely, though most were designated “three’s.” Though they constitute a majority of
Napa’s historic building stock, these “three’s” exist in a sort of twilight zone in which they
are officially unprotected though many individuals acknowledge their significance.85
An example or two will serve to illustrate the types of resources that fall through
the cracks of this HRI. Two nearly identical Craftsman houses stand side-by-side across
the street from Fuller Park, in the heart of Napa’s most important historic district. The
National Register nomination form lists them as non-contributing due to the fact that they
were built in 1919, “too recent, by a year or two, to contribute to the character of the
district.” Another example is that of a vernacular house built circa 1906 in Spencer’s
Addition. Though this neighborhood features resources from as early as the 1860s, most of
the houses are small and modest, and it is not widely considered a historic neighborhood.
The early twentieth-century cottage, featuring original siding, roof-line, and windows, is
85
San Buenaventura Research Associates, 3 – 4.
54
virtually devoid of visible alterations. Nevertheless, it is listed as a “three” on the HRI,
meaning that an owner can make any changes desired with no CHC review required.86
Preservation Awareness in Napa
The local preservation movement has done an extraordinary job of raising
awareness and support for the retention of landmark buildings. The Opera House, many
nineteenth-century downtown commercial buildings, the oldest churches, and the
impressive Queen Anne and Italianate mansions in central Napa are widely agreed to be
significant community resources. At this time they do not appear to be threatened by
demolition, neglect, or inappropriate renovation. However, while the scope of the larger
preservation movement has expanded considerably, public opinion in Napa seems to be
running in place, grounded in an earlier era’s concern with architecturally impressive
landmark buildings.
Napa’s Cultural Heritage Commission, however, along with some of the Planning
Division staff with whom they work closely, is familiar with current preservation standards
and practices. Over most of the last decade members of the CHC have worked to expand
the number and types of historic resources that are formally protected by the City of Napa.
This has often been an uphill battle. Though Napa boasts thousands of historic houses and
dozens of potential historic districts, the public is not really aware of the value of these
resources. Many owners of historic houses choose to preserve the architectural integrity of
their buildings yet do not want to become part of a historic district because they fear
excessive regulation. The very age and architectural quality of Napa’s oldest
86
Napoli, National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet, #47 - #48; San Buenaventura
Research Associates, “City of Napa Combined Historic Resources List,” Revised 5 September 2003, 3.
55
neighborhoods has set the bar extremely high for what is considered historic locally.
Local people who support historic preservation are often surprised to learn that an earlytwentieth-century building can be historic. A suggestion that mid-twentieth century
resources may merit preservation, for instance a humble cinderblock subdivision built
shortly after World War II, tends to be met with incredulity. Many other California towns
less rich in historic resources than Napa have far more robust preservation programs. One
example is the preservation program in Ontario, near Los Angeles. Though its historic
resources are far less extensive than Napa’s, Ontario boasts several successful historic
districts.87
This laissez-faire attitude toward preservation is a holdover from an earlier era,
when Napa was a fairly small town, oriented towards its county’s agriculture rather than
the larger world. Like many well-preserved older towns, Napa was for a long time a place
that the modern world left largely unchanged while other more urbanized areas underwent
radical transformation. The agricultural preserve has certainly been a force that held
growth and suburban sprawl partially at bay in Napa County. The Napa River also slowed
development for many years, as repeated catastrophic flooding made the low-lying historic
sector of the town unattractive to investors. Until the advent of the serious flood-control
work begun a decade ago and still underway, few developers were willing to risk funds in
Napa.
87
City of Ontario website, Historic Districts, http://www.ci.ontario.ca.us/index.cfm/22683/4636,
accessed 1 November 2009.
56
Historic Context Survey
Because of the rather feverish pace of development, particularly downtown, the
CHC over the past five years has become more urgently focused on the need to update the
HRI. This led the Planning Division to bring a Public History graduate student intern on
staff at the start of 2007. The intern was assigned to act as a liaison between the CHC and
staff, to attend CHC meetings, and to work on OHP grant applications and other
preservation projects. The CHC decided, after discussing local needs with city staff and
OHP, that a historic context statement for the City of Napa was an essential building block
for the updated HRI they sought. The student intern prepared the grant application in
consultation with city staff and the CHC. This required soliciting the input of the CHC
members electronically and at meetings, soliciting input from the Planning Director, and
carefully studying the OHP grants manual. As with any grant, the absolutely essential task
was to follow the instructions of the granting institution, in this case OHP, and to provide
OHP with the information they were looking for. With so many people intimately involved
in the project, however, it was difficult to incorporate each person’s suggestions and
opinions while fulfilling OHP’s requirements. In the Spring of 2007 the City and CHC
submitted the grant application to OHP. (See Appendix A) OHP funded the grant for a
city-wide survey and Historic Context Statement study for grant year 2008 – 2009. The
city put out a request for proposals, and staff reviewed the submitted proposals with input
from members of the CHC. The City of Napa ultimately awarded the contract to San
Francisco consultant Page & Turnbull.
57
Page & Turnbull began work on the survey in the fall of 2008. After meeting
with city staff and the CHC to discuss the timeline and project activities, the consultant
held an informational meeting at Napa City County Library. The purpose of this meeting
was to inform the public regarding the purpose, schedule, and scope of the historic context
survey. Page & Turnbull also used this opportunity to solicit information, photographs, and
input regarding the history of Napa from interested members of the public. The consultant
then proceeded to perform library research, for which the student intern acted as both
resource guide and research assistant. Page & Turnbull utilized the document library at the
Planning Division, the public library, and the historical society’s Goodman Library, as well
as documents from repositories located outside the county. Sources consulted for
background research included county maps, city maps, Sanborn insurance maps, firstperson histories, Planning Division documents, previous surveys, local history books, and
California histories.
After background research had been completed, the consultant proceeded to survey
the city. A team of two architectural historians from Page & Turnbull canvassed Napa by
car to survey various historic neighborhoods. The student intern, who is a Napa resident
intimately familiar with its neighborhoods, also frequently accompanied the consultants in
order to guide them toward specific neighborhoods and resources. The architectural history
team looked only briefly at established districts, such as Fuller Park, and neighborhoods
that have recently received intensive survey attention, such as St. John’s. Though this was
primarily a windshield survey and detailed information like that required for DPR 523
forms or National Register Nomination forms was not collected, the consultants frequently
58
left the vehicle behind and walked around neighborhoods in order to get a full visual
sense of buildings and streetscapes. While walking neighborhoods, the three team
members would head in different directions in order to canvas a larger area, taking
photographs of houses as they walked. The intern also later surveyed and photographed
some sub-areas alone.
By the end of 2008, the research and surveying portions of the study were winding
down, and the consultant was engaged in producing the Historic Context Statement. In
mid-January, Page & Turnbull provided the City of Napa with a Draft Historic Context
Statement. Each member of the CHC, the student intern, and the Interim Planning Manager
all provided input to Page and Turnbull regarding content, facts, emphasis, and writing of
the context statement. The draft was also posted on the City’s website, and the public was
invited to comment on its content. The student intern received all the comments on the daft
and collated them into a single document for Page & Turnbull’s use, who then
incorporated the suggestions into their final Context Statement.
Though both city staff and volunteers involved in this project were quite satisfied
with the document produced by the consultant, the process after January did not go as
smoothly as anticipated. The Context Statement was a fifty page history of Napa from the
pre-historic era up to 2008. The Planning Division and CHC were happy with the quality
of the research, writing, and content, and felt that it would be a useful building block in the
effort to update the HRI. OHP, however, did not agree, and rejected the Context Statement.
The primary criticism voiced by OHP was that there was not enough connecting the
history of the town to the property types found in its built environment, and that this aspect
59
of the report needed to be much more explicit. Page & Turnbull made revisions at least
twice, and were obviously struggling to meet OHP’s requirements. The revision process
stretched into the summer. After several changes in direction and emphasis, OHP finally
approved a draft of Page & Turnbull’s Historic Context Statement. Final Draft of the HCS
was released to the public on September 1, 2009. The final document is much longer than
the original and incorporates a discussion of property types, along with photographs of
sample historic resources in each neighborhood, into its chronology of Napa’s history.
Though the CHC is pleased to have a Historic Context Statement on which to base
further surveys and future long-range planning, there was another important document
produced by this effort. Possibly the most significant and useful product of this survey is
the Sub-area prioritization memo, which was not released to the public. Working with the
Global Information System (GIS) department at the city, Page & Turnbull created a
detailed map of the city showing each parcel color coded according to build date. They
used these maps, along with survey data they collected, to divide the historic portion of
Napa into 33 distinct neighborhoods. The consultant, after collaborating with city staff
regarding planning priorities, created five levels of prioritization for future intensive
neighborhood surveys. This prioritization is based on significance of resources, level of
threat from neglect or development, and length of time since the last intensive survey of
the neighborhood. For example, though its historical significance is high, Fuller Park was
given the lowest priority as it is already well-documented and well-protected. Alta Heights,
on the other hand, is a somewhat newer neighborhood, but it has never been fully
surveyed, so it is high on the priority list. Due to the vast numbers of resources in the town
60
and the daunting task the attempt to document them presents, this prioritization memo
should prove to be an essential tool over the next few years as the CHC attempts to survey
more neighborhoods and comprehensively update the HRI.
Historic Homes Workshops
The CHC performs design review for contributing resources that fall within the
boundaries of Napa’s two historic districts. Many property owners are supportive of the
historic district’s restrictions, but for some homeowners and their architects the certificate
of appropriateness process is a bureaucratic hassle they see as unnecessary. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, elected officials are often uncomfortable with a process that is unpopular
with some constituencies and perceived as anti-development. At times the city council has
questioned the necessity of the CHC, and preservationists have feared it would be
disbanded. Because the board can be viewed in this negative light, the CHC for the past
two years has actively sought ways it can generate positive publicity. While the survey
effort was gearing up in the fall, the CHC, staff, and intern decided to offer a series of
Historic Homes Workshops.
The decision to offer the workshops was easily agreed upon, and reached by
consensus of everyone in attendance at the October CHC meeting. The planning, however,
turned out to be extremely complex. It was a simple enough matter to set dates and arrange
for use of the City Council Chambers for two Saturday mornings. Choosing and recruiting
speakers, however, took a much more sustained effort. In addition to the five CHC
members, Interim Planning Manager, and intern, City Council member Juliana Inman took
part in planning the workshops. Inman is also an architect, owner of a historic downtown
61
home, and current President of Napa County Landmarks. The individuals planning the
workshops brainstormed a list of topics, then each member volunteered to line up speakers
based on previous connections. The topics and speakers changed several times, as not
every desirable speaker was available. The speakers were volunteers and the city provided
the space for free, so the only expenses in putting on the workshop were publicity and a
modest coffee service.
The intern took on publicity for the event, which involved a press release, a
calendar listing and advertisement in the local paper, an announcement on the city website,
and a postcard mailer. Writing and designing the postcard, advertisement, and press release
were simple matters. What was more difficult was deciding how to distribute the postcard.
There was no pre-existing database of owners of historic homes, so the intern and Planning
Manager made the decision to use the HRI as well as a list of historical society members.
The database generated by the HRI consisted of nearly 5,000 records, and often reprinted
the same address multiple times. Editing this list and sending out thousands of cards
represented many hours of labor. However, as dozens of homeowners showed up for the
event, and many others expressed interest, the time invested in publicity was well-invested.
(See Appendix B)
In the end, the workshops took place on January 17 and February 7, 2009. They
were well-attended not only by local homeowners, but also by contractors as well as
planning professionals from nearby communities. For the January session, Juliana Inman
spoke on chimney and wood window maintenance and repair, while contractors and
representatives from suppliers gave talks on subjects that included green building for
62
historic homes, HVAC, foundations, and Home Energy Resource Specialist rating. Two
weeks later Juliana Inman spoke on roofs and gutters, a representative of the Napa
Building Department talked about the State Historic Building Code, and CHC members
covered materials reuse. Speakers also talked about historic landscapes, and gave a
presentation on asbestos and lead encapsulation. The members of the public who attended
the workshops were engaged, asking questions and taking notes, and the CHC got a very
positive response. They met the dual goals of this endeavor, helping individuals to preserve
historic properties while raising the positive public profile of the CHC. The CHC plans to
offer two more workshops this winter, recapping some of last year’s information while
addressing new subjects. (See Appendix C)
California Preservation Foundation Conference
In April 2008 the California Preservation Foundation (CPF) held its annual
conference in Napa. “Balance and Complexity: the Vineyard and Beyond” offered upwards
of 50 sessions, study tours, and educational workshops that “emphasized the unique culture
and heritage of Napa. . . as well as best practices in preservation.” This was a crucial
opportunity for local preservationists and staff to network with experienced professionals
from around the region and state, as well as to build pride by showing off Napa’s unique
resources to people who could truly appreciate them. For the intern, this week was packed
with learning opportunities. Sessions attended included a tour of Napa architect Luther
Turton’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings, and a field trip to study the use
of Rehabilitation Tax Credits at Charles Krug Winery and other locations. Interim
Planning Director Marlene Demery was called upon to give a talk on local historic
63
landscapes in the City of Napa’s historic districts. The intern was assigned the task of
preparing Demery’s PowerPoint presentation. Preparation of this presentation provided a
wonderful opportunity to engage directly with central Napa’s historic landscapes. The
intern walked around the Fuller Park district taking photographs of historic landscape
features. She compared these photographs both to historic photographs of the
neighborhood and to the historic district’s landscape regulations in order to examine what
aspects of landscape preservation were working well in Napa and which needed
rethinking.88 (See Appendix D)
The Future of Preservation in Napa
The past two years have seen significant progress in Napa’s preservation
environment as led by the city’s CHC. The massive number of local resources, the
ambivalent local attitude, and the relaxed regulatory environment, however, combine to
create a situation in which preservation of Napa’s architectural heritage will require
significant labor and vigilance. The CHC has several ongoing projects that attempt to
address these issues.
After the successful completion of the Historic Context Statement and
Prioritization Memo, the CHC wanted to keep its momentum on surveying the city moving
forward. Thus, they repeated the process of applying for an OHP grant for 2010 – 2011.
The City Council set aside some matching funds, and the intern prepared another grant
application, this time for an intensive level survey of two important, under-documented
Central Napa neighborhoods. West Napa and Spencer’s Addition were both developed
88
California Preservation Foundation website,
http://www.californiapreservation.org/about_2008.shtml#navtop, accessed 2 November 2009.
64
gradually beginning in the 1860s, and each boasts a large number and diverse types of
historic houses. They are close to downtown and the existing historic districts, but have no
historic preservation regulations at this time. The neighborhoods were among those given
the highest priority for surveying by Page and Turnbull. This grant has also been funded by
OHP, and the City is in the process of receiving consultant proposals. (See Appendix E)
In addition to the ongoing survey effort, the CHC has decided to apply to become a
Preserve America City. This would add prestige as well as another potential source of
funding, as Preserve America awards grants for local preservation projects. The CHC
hopes to create a self-guided historic walking tour of downtown and adjacent
neighborhoods if Preserve America funding ever becomes available. An effort to create an
awards program, possibly modeled after the City of Ontario’s, is also underway. The CHC
is discussing how best to dovetail its potential awards program with the awards program
already administered by Landmarks. The efforts to preserve Napa’s architectural heritage
involves negotiation between public values and private property, between growth and
conservation, and requires a delicate balance between government and individual efforts. 89
Conclusion
Like most other forms of collective remembrance, historic preservation can
engender strenuous controversy. Local historic districts can give rise to battles over
whether to preserve buildings, and which buildings to preserve. These local fights
traditionally pit preservation interests against development and property rights. Outside the
89
2009.
City of Ontario website, http://www.ci.ontario.ca.us/index.cfm/4298/52517, accessed 2 November
65
politics of local districts, cultural conflict over the meaning of historic preservation also
abounds.
The changes that have occurred in Napa’s preservation movement over the years
reflect the evolution of the nation-wide movement in much the same way that local history
dovetails with broader themes. In the 1970s Napa’s local government official believed that
economic survival required replacement of historic buildings. Over the next two decades
they, along with residents of many other large and small cities across the nation, came to
the realization that historic architecture was not only irreplaceable but had economic value.
Gradually historic preservation has gone from being perceived as an unaffordable
attachment to the past to seeming more like an investment in the future. Donovan
Rypkema and other preservation economists have widely disseminated information
regarding preservation’s economic benefits. The proponents of urban conservation are
successfully making the case that economic revitalization and architectural preservation are
compatible goals, and more and more communities are using programs like Main Street to
reap economic benefits.
The historic preservation movement, however, still has its critics, though they are
not the same voices that were calling for a replacement of the past in the 1970s. Some
critics assail historic preservation for not paying attention to history, despite its name.
David Hamer has pointed out that historians, by the same token, have largely ignored the
historic preservation movement, and argues that the reason is that historic districts do not
disseminate stories that mesh with professional historians’ sense of the real past. Part of the
reason for this disconnect is surely the tools of the academic history trade. University
66
historians work with words, written in books, spoken in seminars, electrical impulses
on the internet, but always words. Stories written in wood and stone are not the stories that
historians have been trained to read. In his fascinating and still-relevant history of the
development of the American city, America Becomes Urban, Eric Monkonnen makes a
statement that seems to sum up many historians’ lack of interest in the built environment.
A focus on buildings when studying urban areas, Monkonnen argues, constitutes looking at
“seashells rather than the sea.” This can be interpreted as a wounding rebuke to those for
whom the study historic architecture holds fascination, but ultimately it is a statement that
says more about its speaker than its subject. Surely, to extend Monkonnen’s metaphor, a
seashell can provide information about the sea that gave birth to it.90
Many of David Hamer’s reservations about historic districts, however, are worth
serious contemplation. Historic districts have generally not been good at representing
change, though change over time is what history is about. Districts tend to be organized
around a chosen period of significance, and often seem to be attempts to freeze time at that
point. History continues to unfold after the era of interest, but in a historic district the
temptation is to ignore ongoing change. An example referred to above from Napa’s Fuller
Park District nomination serves as an illustration of this fallacy. Historic buildings with
near-perfect integrity were considered non-contributers to the district because they were
built in 1918, and the arbitrarily chosen period of significance ended at World War I.91
Hamer is particularly critical of the Main Street program’s contradictions. Historic
downtown districts, the author maintains, are about helping municipalities neutralize
90
91
Hamer, vii; Monkonnnen, 14.
Hamer, 116.
67
contemporary problems, and not about history at all. One of these problems is ugliness
and visual chaos. Historic districts often regulate aesthetics, and many critics have argued
that normal life is blocked by such restrictions. Architectural integrity, Hamer points out,
has usually been interpreted to mean order and harmony in the visual environment, and
there is a natural bias in district formation toward the homogenous area. Some
preservationists, such as Norman Tyler, have suggested that contextualism, a sensitive
approach to adding compatible contemporary architecture to historic districts, as a solution
to this tendency. The preservation community is increasingly paying attention to the
history behind the architecture. Historic Preservation in Small Towns, by Arthur P.
Ziegler. Jr. and Walter C. Kidney, however, demonstrates the late twentieth-century
preoccupation with aesthetics. The authors’ knowledge of community preservation
practices is encyclopedic, but this is a work which demonstrates this consistent valuation
of aesthetics over all other preservation values. The authors criticize a 1969 streetscape, for
example, because of the visual clutter caused by signs in the downtown era, despite the fact
that aggressive signage was often an element of historic downtown areas.92
Preservation is invariably a local pursuit, so perhaps it should not be surprising that
its concerns have been so close to those of traditional local histories. Carol Kammen, in On
Doing Local History (2003), discusses what anyone who has read nineteenth-century local
histories already knows: “Local historians have rarely touched on topics that concern
change,” but prefer to focus on stories that build community pride. Kathleen Neals
92
Hamer, 107; Ibid.,, 100; Ibid., 33; Arthur P.Zeigler, Jr. and Walter C. Kidney, Historic Preservation
in Small Towns: A Manual of Practice. (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1980),
11.
68
Conzen, in “The Past Before Us”, adds that these old local histories are flawed by their
failure to tie into themes that interest anyone outside the community. These critiques can
apply equally well to historic preservation when pursued myopically.93
The urban boosterism of the nineteenth century informed not only the happy stories
that communities disseminated about themselves, but also the original development of the
downtowns that would later become historic districts. This was true in the case of Napa, as
speculators began marking off and selling lots in new neighborhoods in the town’s first
decades. It is no accident that, as Hamer points out, the era of significance in an urban
district is often the town’s peak of success and boosterism. Monkonnen has pointed out
that this speculation based on population growth was a new, revolutionary activity in the
nineteenth century, and that it created many a town and many a fortune. No wonder the
urban boosting spirit informs so many historic districts in these nineteenth-century towns,
creating a nearly irresistible impulse to include only the brightest stories in district
histories.94
Heritage tourism, Hamer has pointed out, is another double-edged sword. Though it
frequently provides a nearly unassailable economic logic for building preservation, it also
puts pressure on a community to simplify and sanitize its history. This can be seen in Napa
with the tendency to gloss over the painful local history of mistreatment of Indians,
Chinese, and black Americans, especially in relationship to the diverse population of Napa
93
Carol Kammen, On Doing Local History, (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2003), 32; Kathleen
Neals Conzen, “Community Studies, Urban History, and Local History,” in Michael Kammen, ed. The Past
Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982),
271.
94
Hamer, 107; Monkonnen, 14.
69
tourists. Hamer could have been talking about Napa when he said of Salem,
Massachusetts, “a furious simplifying process is constantly at work under the intense
pressures associated with catering to mass tourism.” Heritage tourism is an opportunity for
preservation, but also presents a danger to resources and to the truth in our stories about
who we are.95
95
Hamer, 87.
70
APPENDIX A
Grant Application, 2009
1. PROJECT SUMMARY
The City of Napa is in the process of completing a citywide historic context statement with
the aid of funding from an OHP grant. Consultant Page and Turnbull has assisted the city
in defining neighborhood subareas and prioritizing them for future intensive surveys. They
have assigned Downtown the highest priority, and this area will be the subject of the
earliest intensive survey. This project is consistent with the State Historic Preservation
Plan.
2. PROJECT SCOPE
“The identification, protection, enhancement, perpetuation and use of buildings, structures,
sites or areas that have important associations with past eras, events and persons important
in local, state or national history” is a primary objective of the City of Napa’s municipal
code regarding Historic Preservation and Neighborhood Conservation. A further objective
is, “The enrichment of human life in its educational and cultural dimensions in order to
serve spiritual, as well as material, needs by fostering knowledge of the living heritage of
the past.” Goals include the identification of types of resources and geographic areas that
have been inadequately docu-mented in earlier historic resource surveys. Historic
resources, including archeological sites, which played a specific role in the development of
the City of Napa will be identified. Other objectives include the designation of individual
historic resources and historic districts. An intensive study of Napa’s traditional
commercial core is an essential step in the City of Napa’s long-term program to
systematically catalog and protect its historic resources.
The effort to update the existing Historic Resources Inventory (HRI) and more consistently
protect historic resources has led the City of Napa to undertake a phased survey process.
The development of the citywide historic context, which is currently being completed, is
the first step of a projected several year effort. As a component of the historic context
survey, subareas to be intensively surveyed over the following three years have been
identified. As the citywide historic context survey nears completion, the city will also
undertake a Redevelopment Agency funded survey of the East Napa neighborhood. This
work will include a historic context statement for East Napa and development of a survey
field guide/survey template, which will serve as a model for all future survey work. After
completion of all survey work, the HRI and Preservation Plan can be updated based on the
new information gathered by the survey.
As well as meeting the objectives of the City’s Historic Preservation Plan, an intensive
level survey of Downtown is a planning priority. The Fuller Park/Abajo and Calistoga
Avenue historic districts enjoy substantial success under current preservation regulations
required by the Municipal Code and overseen by the CHC. The historically significant,
71
architecturally impressive buildings near Fuller Park have been particularly well
preserved, and the historic fabric of the neighborhood retained. However, though the
uncertain economy has lowered property values and home sales slowed in the short term,
development pressure continues to affect Central Napa. A new parking garage has recently
been completed Downtown, and at least three commercial development projects in the area
are nearing completion. Recently completed nearby projects include new retail outlets such
as the Oxbow Public Market and hotel projects such as the Westin. Many adaptive reuse
and restoration projects are also underway. In addition to ongoing commercial
development and flood control, Mervyn’s Downtown and Copia at the nearby Oxbow have
closed in the last year, contributing to the atmosphere of flux in Central Napa. The
original Historic Resources Inventory was undertaken in 1969, and updates or additions
have taken place in 1978, 1988, 1994, 1995, and 1998. An expansion of the HRI, both in
geographical area and types of properties included is also critical, as many significant
buildings were overlooked in earlier surveys that were focused on architecturally highstyle properties. The contemporary interest in community resources and contexts amplifies
the importance of documentation and evaluation of new potential resources and districts.
Napa’s traditional Downtown, is at the geographical core of the historic city. It consists of
commercial buildings built beginning in the late nineteenth century up to the present, as
well as some nineteenth and early twentieth century houses that have been converted to
commercial uses. Napa’s Downtown area contains some of Napa’s most significant
historic resources, many of which are listed on the city’s historic resources inventory.
However, the Downtown neighborhood has never been systematically surveyed at the
intensive level, and infill development over time has affected integrity. As future
development has a high potential for degrading Downtown’s historic resources, the
consultant has assigned it the highest survey priority.
Project Activities
The City of Napa will, through an RFP process, contract with a consultant who meets the
Secretary of Interior’s Professional Qualifications and specializes in preservation planning,
historic research, and field inspection. The consultant will perform and intensive level
survey of the Downtown area of the City of Napa, Prior to preparing the district context
and commencing fieldwork, the consultant will be expected to perform archival research of
primary and secondary sources, review the City’s existing historic resource documentation,
and meet with residents and property owners of the area.
Based on the information contained in the existing HRI, Downtown Napa includes at least
100 historic resources. The rough boundaries of the area are: the Napa River to the East,
Third and Division Streets to the South, Jefferson Boulevard to the West, and Clay, Pearl
and Clinton Streets to the North. The consultant will perform a pedestrian survey of the
area, photograph each building, research building histories, and produce a DPR 523 form
for each historic resource.
72
The public will be involved in informational meetings prior to the field work and will be
invited to contribute historic photographs. The survey findings will be presented to the
public at a meeting of the City Council. Information about the project purposes and survey
activities will be provided on the City’s website, and the City will notify property owners
by mail prior to commencement of field work.



Deliverables
DPR 523 forms for each historic resource
Preservation Recommendations for Downtown area
Information Management Plan
The survey will be used to identify potential district boundaries for adoption by the local
government as well as assess potential National Register of Historic Places eligibility for
individual buildings. No National Register nominations will be generated by the survey.
Properties within a locally designated district are subject to design guidelines.
3. ADMINISTRATION
A. Personnel:
The proposed project will be managed by city staff, with input from the volunteer members
of the CHC and other members of the public interested in and knowledgeable about
Historic Preservation. Work will be accomplished by a consultant team. Resumes attached.
City of Napa Staff and their duties include:
Marlene Demery, Interim Planning Manager, City of Napa: administer project,
administer consultant contract, provide background and resource materials for consultant
team, assist in setting up meetings with affected neighborhoods, review draft and final
work product for conformance with contract.
Carolyn Van Dyke , Secretary, Planning Division City of Napa: Clerical support,
mailings, filing, typing, copying, telephone calls, maintaining volunteer logs, minutes of
meetings.
Jennifer LaLiberte, Project Manager, Redevelopment Agency, City of Napa: provide
background and resource materials to consultant, provide information to affected
neighborhoods, review draft and work products.
Kara Brunzell, Graduate Student Intern, City of Napa: administer project, provide
background and resource materials to consultant, meet provide information to affected
neighborhoods, review draft and final work product.
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Wendy Ward, Historian, Cultural Heritage Commissioner, City of Napa: assisted in
developing grant application and scope of work, participate in study sessions, meet with
residents, review draft and final work product.
Marie Dolcini, Historian, Cultural Heritage Commissioner, City of Napa: assisted in
developing grant application and scope of work, participate in study sessions, meet with
residents, review draft and final work product.
Sarah Van Giesen, Architect, Cultural Heritage Commissioner, City of Napa: assisted
in developing grant application and scope of work, participate in study sessions, meet with
residents, review draft and final work product.
B. Schedule:
1. Request for proposals (RFP) – City
June 2009
 Prepare RFP
 Submit to OHP for review and approval
 Prepare list of qualified consultants
 Mail OHP approved RFP
 Publish RFP
2. Select consultant – City
August – October 2009
 Preview proposals
 Interview consultants
 Select consultant
 Obtain OHP approval
 Prepare contract
 City Council, manager execute contract
3. Study session – City and Consultant
October 2009
 Study session with consultant, Cultural Heritage Commission, and staff
to finalize work program and schedule
 Prepare introductory letter for neighborhood work – consultant
 Progress report to OHP – City
4. Background research – Consultant
November 2009
 Archival research on history and prehistory of City of Napa
 Identify potential for archeological sites
 Review Downtown’s existing historic resource documentation
 Meet with Napa residents, property owners, and neighborhood
associations – identify potential information sources and residents with
special knowledge
 Create Downtown context statement
5 Downtown Napa Intensive Level Survey – Consultant December 2009
 Complete sufficient fieldwork to document information on each historic
resource
 Prepare DPR 523 forms for each historic resource
 Review draft Downtown context statement
6. Conduct survey / compile data – Consultant
January, 2010
 Generate preservation recommendations for Downtown area
 Identify historic resources within survey area
7. Review Survey Data – City and Consultant
April, 2010
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 Organize survey data
 Conduct public workshops
 Progress report to OHP – City
8. Draft Final Products
July 2010
 Final Draft Downtown Context Statement
 Copy to OHP for review
 DPR 523 forms to OHP
9. Final Products – Deliverables
September 2010
 Downtown Napa Historic Context Statement –final
 DPR 523 forms for Downtown Historic Resources
 Information Management Plan
 City deliver to OHP
4. BUDGET
A.
B.
C.
Amount of federal funds requested
Minimum local match
TOTAL
Source of Non-federal Local Match
(1) Donor: City of Napa
Source: General Fund
Kind: Cash Wages and Expenses
Amount:
Budget details
Cost
Categories
$ 25,000
$ 16,667
$41,667
(2) Donor: City of Napa
Source: Volunteers
Kind: In-Kind Services
Amount:
Rate used to
Cash
calculate cost
from
($ per hr. x #hrs) grant
Other In-kind
cash
Marlene Demery, Special Projects Manager
Project admin: 10 hours
Provide background info: 5 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft and final contexts: 10 hours
Review survey results: 10 hours
$110 x 40 hours
$4,400
Carolyn Van Dyke, Secretary
Clerical support, mailings, filing,
typing, copying, telephone calls,
maintaining volunteer logs, meeting
minutes, etc.: 30 hours
$1,584
$52.81 x 30
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Jennifer LaLiberte, R.A. Project Coordinator
Provide background info: 10 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft: 10 hours
Review survey results: 10 hours
$84.75 x 35
$2,453
Kara Brunzell, Graduate Student Intern
Project admin: 60 hours
Provide background info: 45 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft: 20 hours
Review survey results: 20 hours
$12 x 150
Budget details
Cost
Categories
$1,800
Rate used to
Cash
calculate cost
from
($ per hr. x #hrs) grant
Other In-kind
cash
Contract Consultant
Conduct survey, submit reports, and
perform other project activities
per contract; deliver historic context
for City of Napa.
Flat fee
$25,000
Volunteer and In-kind Contributions
Wendy Ward, Historian, Commissioner
Participate in study sessions: 15 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft and context: 15 hours
Review final survey: 5 hours
$80 x 40
$3,200
$80 x 40
$3,200
Marie Dolcini, Historian, Commissioner
Participate in study sessions: 15 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft and context: 15 hours
Review final survey: 5 hours
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Sarah Van Giesen, Architect, Commissioner
Participate in study sessions: 15 hours
Meet with residents: 5 hours
Review draft and context: 15 hours
Review final survey: 5 hours
$80 x 40
Supplies, copying, postage, etc.
$300
TOTALS
5. BONUS POINTS
6. REQUIRED SIGNATURE:

$3,200
$25,000 $18,553
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APPENDIX B
Publicity Materials for Historic Homes Workshops
The City of Napa & its Cultural Heritage Commission
are proud to sponsor two workshops to assist homeowners and
contractors with preserving and maintaining historic homes.
Workshops will be held in the City Hall Council Chambers.
January 17 9:00 AM until noon
Topics include:seismic retrofittingchimney repairwood window
maintenanceenergy efficiencygreen historic buildings
February 7 9:00 AM until noon
Topics include: State Historic Building Codehistoric hardscapes &
landscapesmaterials reuse
Join us for these free workshops to find out how you can enhance your
property value while preserving Napa’s priceless heritage.
To reserve your seat, and for a complete schedule, please
contact the Planning Division at 257-9530 or consult the
City of Napa website at http://www.cityofnapa.org/.
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The City of Napa’s Cultural Heritage Commision is pleased to announce an upcoming
series of free educational workshops to assist homeowners and contractors with the
preservation and maintenance of historic homes.
The workshops will be held in the City Hall Council Chambers on:
 January 17th, 2009 from 9 am - noon
 February 7th, 2009 from 9 am - noon
The goal of the workshops is to share information with the public on how to:
 preserve the character of historic houses
 increase property value
 incorporate modern features
Speakers include:
 City of Napa Councilmember & Napa County Landmarks President Juliana Inman
 Cultural Heritage Commission Chair Sarah Van Giesen
 Armando Navarro of PG & E
 Bob Massaro of Healthy Buildings USA
Topics include:
 State Historic Building Code
 green historic buildings
 wood window preservation and maintenance
 energy efficiency
 lead and asbestos encapsulation
These workshops are being offered by the city FREE to the public. For a complete
schedule follow the link below. To reserve your seat at one or both workshops call the
Planning Division at 257-9530 or email kbrunzell@cityofnapa.org.
[hyperlink to schedule]
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APPENDIX C
Historic Homes Workshop Schedule
CITY OF NAPA
CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION WORKSHOPS
Session 1: Structure Basics
January 17, 2009
9:00
AM
General Welcome and
Introduction
9:10
Seismic Upgrades and Retrofitting
9:30
9:50
10:10
Foundations
Chimney Repair
Green Building Techniques for
Historic Buildings
10:30
Wood Window Maintenance NOT
replacement
HERS- Home Energy Resources
Specialist
10:50
11:10
11:30
Energy Efficiency
HVAC
11:50
Questions
Councilmember Juliana InmanCity of Napa; Chair Sarah Van
Giesen - CHC
Mike Wright Simpson
Strong-Tie
Yi Yang- Summit Engineering, Inc.
Juliana Inman- Juliana Inman, AIA
Bob Massaro- Healthy Buildings
USA
Juliana Inman
Randy HoggDuct Pressure Specialists HERS
Rater
Armando Navarro- PG&E
Mark Kamrath- Bell Products;
Randy Hogg - Duct Pressure
Specialists HERS Rater
Panelists
Session 2: Exterior and Finish Materials
February 7, 2009
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9:00
AM
General Welcome and Introduction
9:10
9:30
State Historic Building CodeGeneral info. and application
Fixtures and Material Reuse
9:50
10:10
Roof and Gutters
Lead and Asbestos Encapsulation
10:30
Historic Hardscapes and Landscapes
10:50
11:10
Historic Landscapes
Questions
Councilmember Juliana Inman- City
of Napa
Chair Sarah Van Giesen- CHC
Steve Jensen- City of Napa Building
Division
Commissioners Sarah Van Giesen,
Marie Dolcini, Jim Scoggin
Juliana Inman- Juliana Inman, AIA
Joe WinogradeNapco Painting
Rue Zieglar- California Heritage
Research
Denise Wiles Adams & Rue Zieglar
Panelists