Q&A with Sean de Courcy, City of Sacramento’s Preservation Director

Portrait by Andri Tambunan

You and your team are currently underway with the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project, which was initiated last summer. How did the project start, and what does it entail?

We meet with the city council members regularly and talk about their priorities and things they’d like us to work on. Councilmember Katie Valenzuela was interested in exploring the idea of focusing on the LGBTQ+ community and creating a historic district in midtown’s Lavender Heights. The creation of a historic district has to start with a historic context: It has to have justification for specific criteria for why it’s significant. At the time, we were working on the African American Experience Project, and we told her, “Let’s try to find some money to do a LGBTQ+ historic context statement.”

We have a survey area, the 12 blocks that people think of as Lavender Heights. Then within that area, we will see if there’s a collection of buildings that represent LGBTQ+ history—and that could become a historic district.

What is the importance of establishing an area as a historic district? What are the protections, if any, that such a designation affords?

Historic designations benefit a community as a whole. For example, there are exceptions to some state housing streamlining laws that can protect historic districts and neighborhoods. There are honorary programs like plaque programs and sign toppers. Think of the R Street Historic District with that big sign across the street itself—these placemaking initiatives are part of it. There are also significant financial benefits for property owners to having your property designated as historic—there are property tax reduction and credit programs.

What does the research look like for this particular project?

We hired consultants who are conducting research at various repositories, including the Center for Sacramento History, the State Archives, the Lavender Library and the city library. Our consultants are the [design and preservation firm] Page & Turnbull. We have a couple of interns wading through publications like Mom, Guess What?   which was a local LGBTQ+ publication from the ’70s through 2009. Our interns, at the direction of Page & Turnbull, are also looking at prison records for arrests that were made. Typically in these arrest records, they’ll have phrases or words that are keywords for people who are cruising or caught in a gay bar. “Perversion,” or things like that. And then you can figure out, “OK, they were arrested in this location, so there was probably a gay bar in this location. Or this might have been a cruising area.” Patterns start to emerge. We start to see that West Sacramento was an area where there were a lot of gay bars. That was sort of the Lavender Heights before Lavender Heights—the area where most of the gay bars were located. And then we also see that in North Sacramento there were a couple. Out on Folsom Boulevard, Bojangles [which doubled as The Cattle Club music venue] was a popular gay bar. We start to establish where those places were, and then ask: When did Lavender Heights emerge as the center of the LGBTQ+ community of the present day? It has a different set of criteria for preservation, where you’re looking at cultural and social significance as opposed to our other historic districts, which are largely based on architecture.

What are you hearing from members of this community that helps you get a better sense of the LGBTQ+ experience?

In this historic context, the AIDS epidemic really played a pivotal role. That’s something that people remember because it’s so recent, and people are readily telling that story. The State Capitol is here, obviously, and there were a lot of people who came here to advocate for gay rights in the beginning in the 1950s and then settled here and lived here. George Raya founded an LGBTQ+ organization at Sac State [in 1970]. Then they were told they could not meet, but they sued the university successfully—that kicked off his activism and he continued to advocate for gay rights at the State Capitol.

As you mentioned, the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project was inspired and influenced by the African American Experience Project, which your office led from 2021 to 2023. What is an “experience project” as presented in these examples?

These are chronological and thematic histories of a group of people, looking at both over time. And then we break that chronology into themes. So if you look at the African American Experience Project, the themes are things like migration and settlement and civil rights—they’re sort of mini histories, if you will, of each topic based on this specific group of people.

The important thing about the African American Experience Project is a shifting of priorities. We announced that we were going to transition our preservation practice in Sacramento from focusing on architecture to studying groups of people in the city. When we first approached the African American community at our first public meeting, we said, “We’re going to identify the people and places and events that are significant to this community. Isn’t this going to be great?” And the African American community members who attended our meetings said, “What are you doing? What do you want from us? And why are you trying to tell our story?” So we regrouped and [asked ourselves], “We want to preserve the places that are important to groups that are underrepresented. This is a noble cause. What are we doing wrong? Why are we being met with this suspicion?”

Obviously, the answer is not complicated: It’s because this is a group of people whom the government has systematically oppressed for hundreds of years. We started having listening sessions where we just sat down with people and said, “This is what we’re doing and why. Tell us what’s important to you. How can we tell your story better?”

How do you think the African American Experience Project succeeded on that count and others?

The community wanted to tell their story once they understood that we were trying to capture the recent past through oral histories. We set out to gather 10 to 15 oral histories; in the end we gathered 41 oral histories. We identified 52 buildings potentially eligible for historic designation as landmarks. The project has also provided the framework for applying for grants. The Shiloh Baptist Church [in Oak Park] has submitted a federal grant application for projects that they’re working on. The Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum has also submitted a federal grant application, and they’re using the African American Experience Project as a foundation and justification for applying for the grant. The city council asked us to try to get some of this research into either community colleges or K-12 schools, so we’re applying for grants to develop teaching curriculum based on the research that was done.

We were awarded a $4,000 grant by the State Office of Historic Preservation to purchase plaques that could be installed on various buildings to tell the history of those places and explain why they’re important. We awarded one to the Guild Theater. The text of that marker talks about the African American history in Oak Park. We’re working with the Williams Memorial church to install a historic marker under the W-X Freeway where the church used to be before redevelopment demolished it. Pastor Larry Meeks at the church described that site as a pilgrimage site.

Given what you’ve learned from the African American Experience Project, what do you hope the current undertaking achieves for the Sacramento LGBTQ+ community?

I think the most important thing is to recognize the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community to the history of the city. That history, like the history of other historically marginalized groups, has not been told in a comprehensive way. It is not incorporated into the city’s architectural or cultural review process. That’s the biggest thing—we hope it accomplishes the listing of districts and landmarks on the [historic] register. We’re hoping that it facilitates placemaking opportunities like signage and general recognition of those sites. The last thing is potential grant opportunities for things like additional study in the future.

And when you say “register” vis-à-vis Lavender Heights, which historic registry are you referring to?

There are three kinds of historic registers. There’s a national register, the California register, and the local register at the city. My office only manages and controls the local register, so our study could potentially result in listing the Lavender Heights Historic District on the local register. The registers are intentionally similar—they have similar criteria and similar guidelines—so listing on a local register could potentially lead to listing on the California or the national register.

Photo by Andri Tambunan

What does the timeline look like for the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project?

The project is scheduled to conclude in January 2025. The Preservation Commission will review the project along the way, and eventually we’ll be asked to make a recommendation to the city council. They receive and file and adopt the findings of the project for use by the city and publishing an official document.

And then when could it finally be recognized by the city as a historic district?

It could be in as little as three or four months, or it could be a year. It depends on several factors. We have to draft the historic district plan, and then we have to do some additional outreach with property owners.

In terms of our city’s history as a whole, in the past, Sacramento was notorious for destroying classic old buildings and even entire communities in the spirit of “urban renewal,” or redevelopment. I’m thinking specifically of the West End neighborhood—where Sacramento’s former Japantown was demolished in the late 1950s to develop Capitol Mall—and the Alhambra Theatre, which was razed in 1973. How does this history motivate you to more proactively preserve these types of buildings and communities?

I like to do a lot of walking. When you walk around the West End, you can see scars of redevelopment all over the place, whether it’s Capitol Mall—a finished redevelopment project—or the vast parking lots that still exist. There are two motivations in the work that we do now to study underrepresented groups who are directly impacted by those redevelopment policies. One is not to repeat the mistakes of the past and tear down buildings and places and destroy communities that may be historically significant and important to understanding our past. And then the other is to tell the stories of the people who are impacted by those policies. Part of the African American Experience Project and the LGBTQ+ Historic Experience Project is to document and explain what policies like redevelopment did to the people who lived in those areas.

Does something necessarily need to be “old” to be preserved? Are there present-day buildings whose historical value we can assess and preserve for the future? 

A building needs to be 50 years old or older in order to be eligible [for preservation]. If a building less than 50 years old is exceptionally significant, it can also be eligible for listing. We are dealing with a project like that right now: the building at 1950 Arden Way, which was a Home Savings and Loan branch at the corner of Arden Way and Exposition Boulevard. It’s 46 years old—the same age as the Alhambra Theatre when it was demolished. And it was designed by Millard Sheets, who is a famous mid-century modern artist. There are mosaic murals on two sides of the building and the interior that were designed by Sheets and then implemented by Susan Hertel. It wasn’t listed on any historic register, and the owner came in and said they’d like to demolish it and build a couple of drive-thru restaurants. We looked at it. It’s identified in our mid-century modern historic context statement and survey as a good example of this type of architecture. This building is not 50 years old, but because of this artist, it’s unique for Sacramento. These murals depict Sacramento history, from Native Americans all the way through to what was present-day 46 years ago. So we’re nominating it to the register.

What happens if the building gets listed on the city’s historic register? Is it protected from demolition?

It doesn’t prohibit demolition, but historic resources are part of the environment under CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Act], so the demolition process is intentionally more complicated and more difficult because the goal of CEQA is to avoid impacts to the environment, including impacts to historical resources. Any impact—such as demolition—requires preparation of an environmental impact report.

Let me play devil’s advocate: Why should we preserve an entire building in a location where no one seems to want to use it, when it has outlived its function and the portion we want to preserve can just be removed and transplanted elsewhere? 

The murals are part of its significance. If they’re removed and transplanted elsewhere, they lose all of their historic context. You won’t know why they’re there or why they’re important. The building itself is a type of architecture called New Formalism. It was built by and designed by the same artist that designed the murals, and he designed these Home Savings and Loan buildings all over the state. These are all part of that moment in history. And by preserving the building, we make it possible to tell that story. If we remove the mural and tear that building down, that story is lost. We don’t have a physical embodiment of it. We call this public history for a reason: To tell history to the public through the built environment, not just write it down in books. Not everyone is going to read a book, but anyone who can look at a building.

Is part of the preservation effort to find a new use for the building?

Yeah. A building should be used as it was historically or should have a new use that preserves the important features of the building. When we started the listing process for Arden Way, someone reached out to us and said, “Hey, do you think I could establish a charter school in this building? This building seems like it’s got plenty of parking. It’s got this big lobby area. I could do classrooms upstairs.” That’d be unique. We haven’t seen that, I don’t think, in a mid-century modern bank. We in Sacramento are more flexible at interpreting the historic standards for adaptive reuse than other cities—we allow for creative projects that push the limits of conventional preservation.

Like what?

Do you know the Eastern Star building? It’s now Hyatt House—just across from Sutter’s Fort. The [developers] completely gutted the interior except for the lobby. That project was not approved with an environmental impact report, which you’re supposed to prepare for any building that significantly impacts historic resources. But we took it to the Preservation Commission and we found it consistent with the preservation standards. That is a very aggressive adaptive reuse of that building into a hotel. Look at the Coloma Community Center [formerly Coloma Elementary School, built in 1921]. Look at the CLARA Center for the Performing Arts [formerly the Fremont Primary School, also built in 1921]. We reuse these buildings for all kinds of things.

The city’s 2017 survey of mid-century modern landmarks in Sacramento won a Governor’s Award from the State Office of Historic Preservation. Any updates about local buildings from that era?

That was a very important project, because the majority of buildings in Sacramento were constructed after World War II. Each year, more and more of those buildings are turning 50 years old, and we have projects coming in looking to alter or demolish those buildings. We just started the nomination process to the city’s historic register for the Eichler Historic District, which is on South Land Park Drive. Joseph Eichler was a designer of homes that are inspired by the Space Age. There are 60 buildings in the district, and over three-quarters of them are Eichlers. [Update: On May 21, the Sacramento City Council voted to designate the homes as a historic district.]

Through the African American Experience Project, we also noted the nondiscrimination policies embodied in those buildings in that district. Joseph Eichler was in adamant opposition to the racially restrictive covenants that were standard practice for new homes being built in the mid-century period, so a number of African Americans were able to purchase homes in that district. During our outreach, we met with some of the first African American families who moved into that neighborhood in the ’50s. They’ve lived there ever since.

How are other cities taking inspiration from Sacramento for their own preservation projects?

I get calls from other cities all the time. I actually just had one from the city of St. Louis and I got one from Joliet, Illinois. They were both looking at our historic district plans and asking, “How did you do this? We would like to emulate these.” And our African American Experience Project also drew interest and questions. Fresno reached out to us, and Long Beach as well. I had lunch with Richard Sucré [the deputy director of historic preservation for San Francisco Planning]. He was saying how impressed he is with how much Sacramento’s doing and all these initiatives that we’re starting. It’s really impressive, especially because we have a staff of two, and San Francisco has a staff of 18. We get this done with myself and Henry Feuss, my staff planner, and a few interns. There’s no other large city in California with a staff this small that gets this much done.

This interview has been edited for length, flow and clarity.

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