If you have visited the Preservation Seattle web site, or read about historic preservation issues in one of Seattle's local newspapers, chances are you've seen the name Heather MacIntosh before. Heather is Historic Seattle's Preservation Advocate and the principal writer for Preservation Seattle.

One of Historic Seattle's core missions is to advocate for Seattle's historic built environment. As a Preservation Advocate, it is Heather's job to get out there and raise public awareness for historic preservation issues that are occurring every day in Seattle.

From endangered historic churches, to earthquake response, to making contacts within the civic community, Heather is a wearer of many hats.

On her second anniversary with Historic Seattle, I talked with Heather about her background, attitude, and general thoughts about preservation in Seattle.

East Coast Roots

Like many professional preservationists, Heather has lived in a variety of places across the country. Since completing her education, she has worked in several capacities in and around historic preservation, as a writer, surveyor, artist and historian.

She grew up in Wilmington, NC, a small port city of about 90,000 founded in the first part of the 18th century. Although Wilmington has, in terms of acreage, the largest historic district in North Carolina, Heather was not professionally interested in historic preservation until after college.

After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1992 with a degree in Art History, Heather moved north to Massachusetts to enroll in the graduate art history program at Williams College in Williamstown. She completed her first preservation project between her first and second year of graduate school, which was a set of about one hundred and fifty drawings of Wilmington's historic residences for the Historic Wilmington Foundation.

Heather earned her Masters of Art History from Williams College in 1994, which focused on nineteenth century American and European architecture. After narrowly missing out on a Fulbright Scholarship to study preservation in Germany, she got a job with the National Trust for Historic Preservation at Chesterwood, one of the Trust's properties, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Chesterwood, one of 21 historic properties owned and maintained by the National Trust, was the home of the famous American sculptor Daniel Chester French. Among French's many works is the statue of President Lincoln within the Lincoln Memorial.

To help pay the rent and expand her skill set, she also worked as an editorial assistant to William H. Pierson, author of the series American Buildings and Their Architects, and provided curatorial services to the Williams College Museum of Art.

While working for the National Trust, she became increasingly interested in American architecture and preservation, and enrolled in the Master of Architectural History Program at the University of Virginia in 1995 because of the structure of the interdisciplinary program. Like the University of Washington's College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the University of Virginia School of Architecture offers its students interdisciplinary programs in fields such as historic preservation. At UVA, architectural historians work alongside architects, landscape architects, and planners in the studio, seminar rooms, and the library.

In the summer of 1998, after graduating from Virginia and completing a state-funded database project, Heather decided to move to Seattle. The late nineties was a time of economic optimism, when the local real estate market was flying and the dot com boom was at its peak. Although preservation colleagues in Washington state confided that there were relatively few preservation jobs in the region, in those days, she says, "Seattle seemed like a good risk."

Timing was on her side. Walt Crowley, a well known Seattle historian and author, was preparing to launch the website dedicated to local history now known as History Link.

A friend, who had attended a UW lecture given by Crowley about the History Link project, had grabbed a flyer and, knowing her background, gave it to Heather. Heather called Walt to introduce herself, and before long was writing website content and helping raise funds for the site by writing grants. Her position evolved and Heather became History Link's Deputy Director, a position that she held until August of 2000.

That summer, Heather got married and left History Link to start her own sole proprietor consulting practice, Lines of Sight. Having by that point lived in Seattle for two years, she was becoming more involved in the local preservation community on both a grassroots and professional level.

The Role of the Advocate

Heather began volunteering on Historic Seattle's Advocacy Committee in 1999 while still at HistoryLink. In February of 2001, she began working half time as Historic Seattle's staff advocate. She had already scaled back her private practice to devote more time to her duties with Historic Seattle when the Nisqually Earthquake hit in February 2001.

Following the earthquake, she says, "we had to advocate like crazy. I was working 60 hour weeks."

Many of Seattle's important historic buildings and landmark districts saw the greatest earthquake damage. Heather scrambled to gather as much information as possible about earthquakes and historic properties from various resources and organizations, many of which were in California. She also coordinated with local agencies that were helping property owners of earthquake damaged historic properties. These efforts helped to create a joint earthquake response program between Historic Seattle and Seattle's Office of Economic Development. That program ended on December 31, 2002.

The job of preservation advocate can be complex.

Although the primary purpose of the job is to provide a voice for historic properties and buildings, fostering dialogue in situations in which not everyone is in agreement is also extremely important. This requires an ability to see a situation from different viewpoints, an ability to understand the needs of different groups, and an ability to be pragmatic.

"In most cases, people believe they are doing the right thing," she explains. "When you are an advocate, the worst thing you can do is to jump to conclusions about other people's motives."

Being an advocate also means being creative. Seattle is a long way from Virginia, and Heather has grown to like working in the West. "In places like Virginia and Massachusetts," she notes, "preservation is much more institutionalized."

"My perspective probably serves preservation in Seattle more than it would in other places because I enjoy trying new approaches," she explains. "Seattle has preservation characteristics that are specific to this region, as well as policies similar to those in other places, like its strong landmarks ordinance and standards for dealing with historic properties."

"Preservation needs to be relevant to a community, and its practice should follow from local interests and conditions," says Heather.

For instance, the preservation of affordable housing has been an issue in Seattle for decades. Combining housing issues with the preservation of Seattle's historic fabric has allowed Historic Seattle to develop a strong track record in both.

For cities like Seattle and Portland, both of which are "wired cities" with populations that are relatively technology-savvy, the use of tools like the Internet and email to further preservation is a logical choice. "It makes sense for Historic Seattle to invest in its web development," says Heather.

Current Events

Seattle, although popularly viewed as a relatively young city, has its share of ongoing preservation issues, and there are certainly enough to keep Heather busy.

Until recently, for example, many Seattle residents were not aware of the proposed demolition of the First United Methodist Church at 5th and Marion. Like many Seattle churches, First United was damaged during the Nisqually Earthquake. It is, however, the last historic church standing in the downtown area. Heather has been working on the First United cause for almost a year now, attending meetings and getting the word out. As Historic Seattle's advocate, Heather is also trying to help the church find mutually acceptable alternatives to demolition.

"First United Methodist Church is an issue that a lot of people care about but are frustrated by," she says.

Advocacy can always use the volunteer time of those interested in preserving the past. Good advocacy involves lots of research, which is extremely time consuming. To learn more about Historic Seattle's advocacy mission and some of the projects currently underway, check out our home page and follow the advocacy link.

Heather MacIntosh can be reached at advocacy@historicseattle.org.

View last month's Young Voices article

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