Preservation a challenge in ever-changing culture

Long-time Palm Beach Daily News (the Shiny Sheet) cartoonist, David Willson, pulls a cartoon from his archives that points to the difficulties of historic preservation in Palm Beach. Ever-changing tastes and a seemingly unending supply of financial resources, make preserving structures a challenge in the town. He recalls the story of the Four Winds, a landmarked house that went through the approval process with the Landmarks Commission. Then, during construction, it was discovered what had been officially approved could not be built and the building ended up being demolished. It was then re-built, using some of the same materials, to look like a bigger version of its former self. That is not historic preservation. When it was discovered what had happened, a big brouhaha erupted and the Town spent a lot of time investigating to see who was at fault and came up with a large report about the whole affair. The conclusion was essentially "mistakes were made."

We had a similar situation with the Lake Worth Casino building. We were told that it would be a restoration (of something that ceased to exist long before), then we were told it was a rehabilitation of the building that was there (it wasn't). Then all but 4% of the existing building was demolished. What exists there today may be more pleasant to look at, but that is not historic preservation.

Click title for link to an interesting historical recollection.