Roque Tudesqui House - Historic Santa Fe Foundation

An excellent source of information on the historic preservation
movement in the United States is the revised edition of WiIIiam 1. Murtagh's
book, Keeping Time: The HistOlY and TheolJI at' Preservation in
America (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997). Murtagh served
as the first Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places and initiated
preservation programs at several universities. In 1961, as vice-president
of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, he spoke in Santa Fe on
the importance of preservation at the time when the Trust was assisting in
the founding ofthe HSFF.
Q: How do historic properties get their names?
Properties are commonly known by various names at different
times as the result of varying associations. For example, a residence can
be identified by its most recent or its most prominent occupant, its architect,
or some prominent feature. An example of the latter is the "pink
house" at 334 Garcia Street, so called for the distinctive color of its exteriorwalls.
In preservation,
a historic name is chosen which best reflects the
property's history and its era of significance, which is generally earlier than
50 years. (The evolving concept of significance in preservation will be
discussed in more detail in a future column.) In the case of a residence, the
historic name might be that ofthe person who was responsible for building
the house or brought it to its present (and historic) appearance. If a
building has been altered to the extent that it no longer conveys historic
associations, it would not be eligible for designation, regardless of significance.
Thus, to return to the example of the "pink house," its historic
name is the Frank Leonard Smith House for the young man whose financial
circumstances in 1920 permitted him to hire the most prominent architect
of the period, Isaac Hamilton Rapp, to design the residence. Although
Smith died young and is hardly known today, he was responsible
for the creation of the home, which when listed remained essentially as
Rapp designed
it.
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