PRESERVATIONIST

Sidney Williams

“ Preservation is a long journey. It takes support, it takes education. It takes a broad community to understand its impact. ”

Preservation, which encompasses the recognition and protection of architecturally significant structures, plays an essential role in the character and appeal of any city.

Sidney Williams is an archetypical woman preservationist in the Palm Springs area. Beginning in 2005, she was instrumental in the rescue and repurposing of the former Santa Fe Savings and Loan building into an exhibition space for Palm Springs Art Museum: the Architecture and Design Center. The original structure, an incredible example of the glass pavilion style, had been built in 1961 and was later threatened with demolition in order to be replaced by a highrise construction.

Born in Vancouver BC, Sidney arrived in the valley in the 1960s and married the son of one of its best-known architects, E. Stewart Williams. She has since become an architectural historian as well as a former curator of Palm Springs Art Museum and co-founder of the Palm Springs Architectural Alliance.

Other notable women preservationists include Beth Harris, largely responsible for  the preservation of the Kaufmann Desert House; Trina Turk, a generous supporter of the museum’s Architecture and Design Center; and Tracy Conrad, restorer of the Willows and Smoke Tree Ranch.