Warren Adams at the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Lona O’Connor
Warren Adams will be the first to point out that he didn’t invent historic preservation in Boynton Beach. That honor belongs to a dedicated group of preservationists who conducted a survey of the city’s historic buildings in 1996.
But with phone apps and radar and interactive websites and GPS mapping, he has brought history into the 21st century — and won grant money to pay for the work. Now people from other cities are calling him to find out how to do the same.
Adams worked with the city’s historic preservationists to put together its first historic planning ordinance. The City Commission agreed to hire him as its first full-time historic preservation planner in 2011.
“We recommended that the city hire a full-time planner, hoping that we might get a part-time position,” said newly elected historic board chairman Barbara Ready. “We were shooting for the moon, but they went for the full-time position.”
Even though he was born in New Jersey, he adds a couple of Scottish-influenced r’s to that word. He spent his formative years in Paisley and Glasgow, where he was also trained in historic preservation, in a country that treasures its thousand-year history.
Lately he’s been showing up at neighborhood association meetings, to encourage owners of homes older than 50 years to consider having them added to the historic building survey. He emphasized the positive — the city reviews plans for additions to historic houses, but does not dictate changes. And there’s the possibility of a tax credit, too. He’s starting to get a trickle of inquiries from homeowners.
“That’s why I like him so much,” said longtime preservationist Janet DeVries, who worked on the 1996 survey. “He’s very low-key. He presents the facts and he has that enthusiasm. He knows you can’t force people but you can plant the seeds.”
A department of one, he has added hundreds of buildings to the survey, often walking from house to house with a clipboard and a camera. He has uncovered local notables from the past.
Leading college students, on a recent Sunday he tramped through the city’s five undeveloped scrub areas.
“It was a hot, long day, but it was really good fun. It’s good to get students involved. They’re really keen on it.”
Add to his to-do list: interpretive boards for those scrub areas.
His enthusiasm is so infectious that one of his historic preservation board members, Eric Salomonsson, followed him to explore a deserted downtown house partially constructed with 1940s oil cans.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Adams told the board.
“It was cool,” said Salomonsson of the field trip, passing around a few oil can labels he salvaged.
Adams set up historic markers on two “heritage trails,” which offer the full history of buildings when a smartphone is waved over their scannable QR codes. The latest marker, at the city marina, highlights Janet Hall, the first woman licensed to operate a fishing boat in the city.
Another local whom Adams has brought to light is Conrad Pickel, a world-renowned stained glass artist who worked in Boynton Beach. Last year Adams teamed up with two glass galleries in Lake Worth for a tour centered on Pickel.
“It was so much fun,” said board member Susan Oyer of the tour, parts of which are free. The second Pickel tour is scheduled for May 23.
The city received the 2013 municipal achievement award from the Florida League of Cities, for historical education.
Next up — pending the winning of another state grant — is to further investigate Wells Avenue, the former main street of the Heart of Boynton, a traditional African-American neighborhood and one of the city’s oldest.
Adams already has persuaded builders of a model block of new homes in that area to add front porches and other features to echo architectural details of the original homes, some of which were built by Robert Wells, the street’s namesake, who built the first subdivision in the Heart of Boynton in the late 1800s.
“The residents really value their history,” said Adams. “And I’m hopeful that (historical research) is going to regenerate and solidify the community.”
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