Loading...
1663-15 Art Deco/Preservation THU SEP 16 1993 ED: FINAL SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 1 LENGTH: 43 . 82" LONG ILLUST: color photo: Betty Gutierrez with George Neary; photo: The courtyard of the Amsterdam Palace HOTEL , the REVERE HOTEL SOURCE: RAFAEL LORENTE Herald Staff Writer DATELINE: MEMO: DESIGNING A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE Three years after the death of its energetic and eccentric founder, Barbara Baer Capitman, the Miami Design Preservation League is struggling to define its role in a changing city. Nowhere have questions over the league ' s role been more evident than in the recent battle over the Revere Hotel, 1100 Ocean Dr. After fighting Italian designer Gianni Versace' s plan to tear down the Revere, MDPL allowed the 1950 hotel to go down in exchange for promises of a stronger preservation ordinance. But the battle over the hotel left questions about the league ' s mission. Some preservationists argued that the building should have been saved at all costs because it ' s in the historic district. Others were willing to give it up for tougher laws protecting similar buildings in the future. Some even said the Revere was not worth saving at all because it was out of character with the Art Deco hotels along Ocean Drive. Demolition began a week ago, but the bigger fight is how the league should approach preservation in the future. Should the league be the conscience of preservation in Miami Beach, fighting for every old building? Or should the league take a less strict position? As the Revere controversy unfolded, Bernard Zyscovich resigned as chairman of the preservation league because of the hard-line stance some of his colleagues took to preserve the boarded-up, three-story building. "At the time that I resigned there was a different perspective. There was a singularly preservationist perspective regarding the Revere, " Zyscovich said. "The league has more than one direction in which it can go, " Zyscovich said. "Is it more productive in the long run to be close to the center of influence . . . or is it better to be the conscience of the community, even though it may require you to lose influence?" Zyscovich believes MDPL' s future should be near the center of influence. However, some of the new breed of preservationists believe MDPL has to fight harder and expect more than in the past. "You don't measure progress in terms of what was possible 10 years ago, " said Victor Diaz, a board member of MDPL. "We definitely are the intellectual conscience in the community on preservation issues. " The Miami Design Preservation League was founded in 1976 by Capitman to save the practically abandoned architecture of South Beach. In 1977 , she organized Art Deco Weekend to promote the area, turning the three-day festival from a few vendors in the lobby of the Cardozo Hotel to a huge event that even on a rainy weekend this year attracted 200, 000 visitors. In the years before Capitman' s death in 1990 at age 69, the league won many battles, among them inclusion of the district in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 , getting the first historic preservation ordinance passed in the city in 1982 and persuading the City Commission to designate a local historic district in 1986 . But the league also lost some battles, like the fights to save the New Yorker Hotel in 1981, the Biscaya Hotel in 1987 and the Senator Hotel in 1988, when Capitman tried in vain to block a bulldozer with her body. But the buildings that fell became martyrs to activists working to preserve the district -- symbols of what could happen if they did not fight on. In that way the Revere has become a symbol. Versace tore down the Revere to put in a pool and a garden as part of an elaborate renovation of his building next door, the Amsterdam Palace, which he has renamed Casa Casuarina, the original name of the 1930 Mediterranean Revival apartment house. Despite standing in the heart of the Art Deco district, the Revere wasn't protected from demolition, city attorneys said. They said the law only protects buildings put up prior to 1950 -- the year the Revere was built. Some preservationists, like MDPL board member James Gillon, interpreted the law differently and thought the Revere should have been saved at all costs -- if for no other reason than its location in the historic district. Others, like Nancy Liebman, former executive director of MDPL, disagreed, saying the building was out of place with its older neighbors that went up from the 1920s through the ' 40s. Preservation league leaders took a path somewhere in between -- publicly fighting for the Revere in order to make their case for a stronger ordinance and surrendering it once the new ordinance seemed a sure thing. The new ordinance would make it tougher to demolish ' 50s-era buildings like the Revere. "It ' s very hard because we feel we are losing a building that is an important part of the district, " Betty Gutierrez, chairwoman of the league, said after the deal was struck with Versace. But efforts to change the ordinance took precedence, Gutierrez said. "We just have to be there, " she said of the future. "We' re hoping that we can get the best possible ordinance out there so we can be more proactive. " The battle between pure conscience and pragmatism will continue as MDPL works to protect buildings like the Revere in the future. What happens if a developer wants to tear down another old building? How will the city' s plans to build more parking garages affect the historic district? "The mission of preservation is not to keep every stone in place. It' s not a museum, it ' s a living thing, " Liebman said. "It really isn't just saving buildings, it ' s saving an environment and an atmosphere. " Zyscovich, who quit as MDPL' s leader when his ideas did not reflect the view of the majority, thinks the internal questioning is normal. " (MDPL) battles itself, it ' s part of the process, " Zyscovich said. "I don't think it ' s a bad thing. " ADDED TERMS: END OF DOCUMENT.