Alex Cole is gone. A friend and colleague of only a few short years, she passed from this world on July 22 at 10 in the morning. It was a day and time of her choosing. It was a no-nonsense decision, to leave under her own terms, a decision typical of this strong woman. And with her passing, Santa Barbara has lost one of her most devoted champions of historic preservation.
I met Alexandra Cole in my role as archivist for the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Several years ago, she visited the Gledhill Library reading room, a place she knew better than I at the time. I had recently taken over the role following Michael Redmon’s 40-year tenure. Alex had researched Santa Barbara architectural history at the Gledhill for years as principal of her own company, Preservation Planning Associates (PPA), a firm that helped developers comply with city and county requirements before they altered historic structures.
During Alex’s occasional visits to the Gledhill, she would explain in simple terms what she did. She said, “I am the voice of the historic buildings that cannot speak for themselves.” But Alex did not see herself as a bulwark against rampant development. She saw herself as an intermediary between the needs of the developer and the needs of historic preservation. She prided herself on finding solutions that satisfied both worlds.
I got to know Alex during our handful of lunches at Joe’s. Alex grew up on the East Coast; her father was a scholar and Episcopal minister. She received a BA in History from Smith and a Masters in Library Science from Columbia University. She moved to Santa Barbara when her first husband got a teaching position at UCSB. Alex got a job as an academic librarian at Westmont College.
California was a cultural eye-opener for Alex. She said it this way, “In New England, it was as if God pointed down at the Earth saying, ‘Thou shalt not,’ but in California, God pointed down at the Earth and said, ‘Go for it!’” Alex thrived in Santa Barbara. Although she was a couple of years too mature to be a flower child, she was open enough to embrace the hot tub culture of Mountain Drive. (A pet subject of mine; when I asked her which old Mountain Drivers she knew, she said, “Well, Bill Neely was my boyfriend.”)
In her role as a reference librarian at Westmont, Alex came across a periodical that introduced her to the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Vermont. She applied to the program and was given a full scholarship and stipend that allowed her to move to Vermont in the late 1970s. After a year and a half, she was back in Santa Barbara with a second master’s degree and ready to start a new career as a historic preservation consultant. Thus, Preservation Planning Associates was born.
Over these many years, Preservation Planning Associates has researched and written more than 600 historic structures and sites reports and letters in support of development in Santa Barbara County. The list is a who’s who of landmarks, including the Santa Barbara Depot, the Miramar, El Encanto, the Biltmore, Coral Casino, San Ysidro Ranch, Riven Rock, Granada Theatre, Lobero Theatre, Big Yellow House, Botanic Garden, Mattei’s Tavern, Music Academy of the West, Casa Dorinda. The list goes on.
Alex practiced what she preached. She and her second husband saved an1875 wooden framed house on Fig Street from being demolished and the property turned into a parking lot. The barn behind the house now serves as Jeff Shelton’s studio.
With her librarian background, Alex understood her work had historic value beyond its initial use for architectural review boards and planning commissions. She had the foresight to offer her 40 years of local preservation work to an archival repository where it could have a second life as a resource for research. With her extraordinary organizational skills, Alex packaged up her work for the Gledhill in such a way that it was immediately accessible in both hard copy and digital.
Over a goodbye drink at the James Joyce just one week before she left us, Alex shared with me a thumbnail of her life. She felt she had lived a full and wonderful life, reflecting her positive outlook on the world. She could recall only two tragedies in her life: the loss of her youngest son and the loss of her second home in the Tea Fire, which occurred within seven months of each other. The chronic disease Alex has been living with for the past eight years didn’t even make the list. Through it all, Alex has prevailed. As women do.
But age has a way of catching up with us all. A month ago, Alex suffered a bad fall. The medical diagnosis predicted a rapidly degrading quality of life, so Alex requested and was granted an end-of-life option by her doctor. At 10 in the morning on July 22, I lit incense to commemorate the passage of this very spiritual woman. My friend and colleague Alex Cole is gone.
