Save Our Heritage Organisation

10/18/2026

Do you know the story behind the Amy Strong Castle? Tucked away in Ramona is one of San Diego County’s most eclectic historic homes—a 1921 Arts and Crafts masterpiece that looks like it belongs in a storybook.

Designed by master builders John Vawter and Emmor Brooke Weaver, for Amy Strong, the 27-room, 12,000-square-foot adobe home was created for Amy Strong.

Its extraordinary design blends influences from across the world: French stonework, Dutch windmills, Spanish brick and tile, and Medieval-inspired gargoyles and arches. . Roof tiles are supported on a concrete roof sustained by rock buttresses. The exposed eaves are troughs hewn from unfinished eucalyptus trunks supported by gargoyle figures.

Amy Strong's vision, the talents of her architects and the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement can be seen in this enchanting structure. The ideals emphasized harmony between the individual and the environment, intense involvement of the artists with their materials, and the blending of the primitive with the sophisticated.

But by the late 2000s, this remarkable house was in serious trouble.

Years of deferred maintenance had left the property vulnerable to demolition by neglect. Rotting rafters and wood beams, deteriorating roof tiles, sagging arches, and other failing elements threatened the future of the National Register-listed landmark.

In 2009, SOHO placed the Amy Strong Castle on its Most Endangered List.

Wonderfully this story had a happy ending. After meeting with the owners and sharing what we saw could be an economically advantageous vision for the property’s future, SOHO helped enthuse a new commitment to restoration. Instead of abandoning the deteriorating landmark, the owners were newly inspired and chose to invest in bringing it back to life.

Today, known as Mt. Woodson Castle, the beautifully restored property has a new purpose as a popular wedding and events venue.

The castle’s story is a reminder that preservation sometimes begins by helping someone see what a threatened place could become again. From neglect to renewal, Amy Strong Castle has a new chapter.

SOHO | This Place Has a Story

SUPPORT SOHO:
https://www.sohosandiego.org/giving/index.htm

Enjoy this photo essay blog of award winning documentary filmmaker and photographer specializing in architecture, historic preservation and nature, Dan Soderberg https://dsoderblog.com/the-amy-strong-house/

10/17/2026

SHARING FOR OUR FRIENDS at Latinos in Heritage Conservation We’re seeking a dynamic, mission-driven leader to guide and support a talented group of folx advancing Latinx heritage nationwide. Please share with colleagues.

We’re hiring: Director of Historic Preservation at Latinos in Heritage Conservation!

LHC is seeking a senior preservation leader to guide our national practice. This leader will ensure the technical rigor and community accountability of everything our Preservation Department produces, supervising a team of preservation professionals and consultants so that our practice reinforces lived knowledge rather than displaces it.

We are actively interested in candidates who have worked in the field. We will treat that experience as an asset.

We welcome candidates of all backgrounds who bring the experience, humility, and commitment necessary to advance community-led preservation of Latinx places, histories, and cultural heritage.

COMPENSATION
The good-faith salary range for this position is $75,000–$85,000 annually.

Health coverage: LHC pays 100% of employee medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums and contributes toward family medical, dental, and vision coverage.

View the full description and apply when you visit:

Remote Continental U.S.

10/14/2026

Help Defend Section 106 and America’s Cultural Heritage! If you belong to an organization involved in historic preservation, history, archaeology, Tribal heritage, museums, architecture, conservation, or related fields, this message is for you.

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act helps ensure that federal projects consider their effects on historic properties and cultural resources. That protection is under threat, and organizations across the country are coming together to defend it.

Tomorrow, on October 15, the 60th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, the Campaign for Section 106 will launch a three-year effort to protect this vital law. More than 800 organizations have already joined the call, with a goal of reaching 1,000.

Here’s how your organization can help:

Here are three ways your organization can help:

SIGN THE OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS. Add your organization’s name in opposition to efforts that would weaken Section 106. Sign the letter here.https://culturalheritagepartners.com/open-letter-to-congress-from-national-coalition/

GET OTHER ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED. Share this appeal with your partners, colleagues, and allied organizations and encourage them to sign the letter, too.

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN. Sign up for advocacy alerts and formally endorse the Campaign for Section 106 to help strengthen this nationwide effort.: https://mailchi.mp/14260981b7ed/defend-section-106

ENDORSE THE CAMPAIGN FOR SECTION 106 (by indicating your support here) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBQOS9yrci2odreJ5cS_dqO1GojuWILEY78vKn9-xcyXew3Q/viewform

SOHO encourages organizations throughout San Diego and beyond to stand together in protecting our nation's historic places and cultural heritage. Your organization’s voice matters. Join the effort to defend Section 106!

https://www.106strong.com/
https://mailchi.mp/14260981b7ed/defend-section-106

Sign up for advocacy alerts to help defend the National Historic Preservation Act.

10/12/2026

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day. In San Diego County and the surrounding borderlands, Indigenous cultural heritage is inseparable from the land itself.

What does historic preservation mean when the place at risk is not a building, but a mountain? Kuchamaa Mountain also known as Tecate Peak, is sacred to the Kumeyaay people. Its significance is part of a living cultural and spiritual heritage.

SOHO’s work to protect and raise awareness to endangered historic and cultural resources reflects how preservation extends to the landscapes and places that hold meaning for generations of people, archaeological sites, cultural landscapes, and the places that hold evidence of human life, history, and enduring connections to the land.

Learn more about the work of our binational partners to protect Kuuchamaa Mountain at the image link.

Kuchamaa Mountain, also known as Tecate Peak or Cerro Cuchuma, has been named to the 2026 Endangered Latinx Landmarks List, unveiled August 20, 2026 at the Latinos in Heritage Conservation Congreso Leadership Summit in Chicago. The annual program recognizes at-risk places of significance to Latinx c...

10/11/2026

Do you know the story about a little house that helped show San Diego what preservation of cultural heritage means? In a city filled with grand Victorian houses and landmark buildings, the Senlis Cottage might be easy to overlook.

Built in 1896, this modest four-room Queen Anne cottage was home to Eugene Senlis and his wife, Lena. Eugene worked for renowned San Diego horticulturist and nurserywoman Kate Sessions, whose influence on the city's landscape is legendary.

The Senlises' little home stood at 1536 Second Avenue, in what was then the growing New Town neighborhood, now part of downtown San Diego.

The cottage was not a mansion. It was not designed by a famous architect. It had a kitchen, a parlor and two bedrooms, and like many working-class homes of the era, it originally had none of the conveniences we take for granted today, no indoor plumbing, electricity, gas or running water. But it was home.

When SOHO saved the Senlis Cottage, it was among the first preservation organizations in the nation to recognize that the history of a community cannot be told only through the houses of its wealthiest or most prominent citizens.

The small homes of working families are equally important pieces of the story. They show us how people actually lived, worked and built their lives in San Diego.

Look closely at the Senlis Cottage and you will see that modest does not mean without character! Its Queen Anne details echo those found on much larger and more elaborate Victorian houses of the same period. It demonstrates the remarkable range of late-19th-century residential architecture and reminds us that good design was not reserved exclusively for the wealthy.

In 1981, the cottage was moved to Heritage County Park, where it could be preserved and shared with the public rather than lost to development.

Today, the Senlis Cottage stands as an important reminder that historic preservation is about more than saving big or famous buildings. It is about saving the places that allow us to understand the full story of a community including the homes of the people whose names may never have appeared in history books.

For SOHO, that has been part of the mission from the beginning: recognizing that San Diegos stories, its places are worth preserving.

SOHO | This Place Has a Story
SUPPORT SOHO: https://www.sohosandiego.org/giving/index.htm

10/07/2026

THIS SATURDAY: October 10, just in time for the Halloween and Día de los Mu***os seasons, join Dr. Seth Mallios as he unburies how San Diego’s cemeteries reveal changing attitudes toward death and remembrance, the customs of different communities, and the effects of urban development on places once set aside for the dead.

Based on research conducted through the San Diego Gravestone Project, this illustrated lecture explores how San Diego’s historic cemeteries, resting places, and long-standing memorials tell the story of our growing city. Mallios will explain how archaeological investigation and historical research help preserve these vital records of the past, and show how our local burial grounds continue to inform our understanding of the living.

Mallios is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the South Coastal Information Center at San Diego State University. He also serves as director of the San Diego Gravestone Project and is the author, with David M. Caterino, of Cemeteries of San Diego.

Register here or the Online Zoom lecture: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/penning-the-past-2026-insights-into-san-diegos-historic-neighborhoods-and-architecture

10/05/2026

Grand Onion Historic Preservation: Gaslamp Quarter

"The one and only Onion in this year’s awards, a Grand Onion at that, goes to the Gaslamp Quarter. Nominees complained of the city’s poor management of the historic district. In particular, they took issue with the modern signs and Comic-Con wraps on historic facades.

“Everything that makes Gaslamp unique and special is being obliterated,” wrote architect David Marshall. “The historic quality of the Gaslamp Quarter is diminishing week-by-week from ill-designed storefronts, dominated by garish, modern signage and advertising.”

Marshall noted that the city is not enforcing the design guidelines and rules enacted under the rules of it being a historic district, with outdoor TVs, backlit signs and blocked windows. ..."

READ MORE at the TIMES OF SAN DIEGO HERE: https://timesofsandiego.com/arts/2026/10/03/orchids-onions-this-years-fragrant-or-smelly-architecture/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning+newsletter+10.05&utm_source=887242e78e&npnl=NDAzNjAwfDQ0NzY1YzM4MTIwOTAyOWY1Yzg1ODI0MjI3OGU0OWMyZDY3YzU0ODFkMTZhODU0NGU0NjRlZTdkZjhiY2Y1YWY&mc_cid=50d52b637f&mc_eid=5500089d53

10/04/2026

Our friends and preservation partners at La Mesa History Center are looking for a few more volunteers for the upcoming home tour!
Sign up information below in original post.

We are still looking for some volunteer docents for the Home Tour. You get to do the tour for half a day then volunteer the other half at one of the amazing homes on tour. Sign up here: https://www.lamesahistory.com/volunteers/

10/01/2026

PLEASE NOTE DUE TO EXTEME HEAT- THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED!

If you love San Diego history, adobe, and the places that tell our region’s story, this is one to put on your calendar! This Saturday, October 3, 2026

On Saturday, October 3, at 4 p.m., join our friends at the Bancroft Ranch House Museum in Spring Valley for an Adobe Brick Demonstration with Chris Hagan. You’ll get a fascinating look at the traditional process of making adobe bricks and how these time-tested techniques are still being used today to repair and care for the Ranch House.

We all love seeing San Diego's historic places cared for, used, and passed along to the next generation and Bancroft Ranch House is doing exactly that. It’s a special place, and one that deserves our community’s attention and support!

Go visit. Learn something. Support a local historic treasure.

Spring Valley Historical Society
Bancroft Ranch House, Spring Valley
Saturday, October 3, 2026
4 p.m.
All are welcome!

10/01/2026

Kids Free at SOHO Museums this October!

Make October a month for exploring San Diego history with the whole family.

Throughout the month, kids 12 and under receive FREE admission with a paid adult at both of SOHO’s historic museums as part of the San Diego Museum Council’s annual Kids Free in October celebration.

Visit the Marston House Museum & Gardens in Balboa Park, an beautifully preserved 1905 Arts and Crafts home that tells the story of George W. and Anna Marston, their family, and their influence on San Diego.

Or head to Warner-Carrillo Ranch House in Warner Springs, where an 1857 adobe recalls the era of stagecoaches, overland travel, ranching, and life along the historic Butterfield Overland Mail route.

Offer: Up to 2 kids free with each paid adult admission

Coupon: Download your Kids Free coupon here (coupon must be presented for admission):
https://sandiegomuseumcouncil.org/kids-free-museum-pass/

More information:
https://sandiegomuseumcouncil.org/specials/kidsfree/

The offer is valid October 1–31, 2026.

Two very different places. Two fascinating chapters of San Diego history. One great reason to explore them with your family this October!