Each year, the  Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation and partners are proud to host the annual Louisiana Preservation Conference for tours, educational sessions and networking.   Stay tuned for updates and announcements for the 42nd Annual Louisiana Preservation Conference on April 19 & 20 in Lake Charles, with a focus on climate issues and preservation.  

Wednesday, April 19 (afternoon):     Tours or Climate Migration and Welcoming Newcomers Workshop

Thursday, April 20 (7 to 9 a.m.):  Preservation Networking Breakfast

                                    (9:30 to 4):   Welcome, Educational Sessions, Luncheon, More Educational Sessions

Register HERE by Friday, April 14.  

A limited number of scholarships are available to students in Louisiana colleges and universities.  APPLICATION deadline April 10.

Session Topics and Presenters

Rebecca Otte – Louisiana Statewide Brownfield Coordinator – Louisiana Dept. of Environmental Quality

Lead, Asbestos and Tanks – Oh My! Resources to Address Environmental Issues at Historic Properties to Facilitate their Reuse

Looking to redevelop a vacant and/or underutilized historic site in your community? Need help addressing environmental concerns to move the project forward? Attend this session to learn about resources available through the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (LDEQ’s) Brownfield Program! LDEQ’s Targeted Brownfield Assessment (TBA) Program provides assistance with environmental assessment and cleanup of Brownfield sites throughout the State. In addition, small grants are available to nonprofit and government entities for planning activities such as market studies, infrastructure analysis, and reuse visioning. Join us for this informational session on how the Brownfield Program can help you restore historic properties to address blight, support local economic development, and turn vacant and underutilized historic properties into community assets.

LA – Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency (CPRA) – LA Department of Community Affairs – (DCA)

Flood and Wind Adaptation Projects for our Coastal Historic Buildings

The US Army Corps of Engineers has identified 4,000 buildings in SW Louisiana and 2,500 in the South Central Coastal Study for elevation and dry floodproofing of non residential buildings known as “nonstructural” flood adaptation/mitigation projects and LA-Department of Community Affairs – (DCA) Hurricane recovery – RESTORE-LA projects which include several thousand “Fortified” roofing retro-fit projects. This program provides conference and session attendees a review of the projects and the timelines for the projects. All of these projects are dependent on voluntary property owner participation and a lot of the buildings identified by the State and Federal Government are historic designated or eligible for designation and not designated.

Ray Scriber and Amanda Lanata – Louisiana Main Street Program

Catching up with Louisiana Main Street Managers

By invitation only. This is a chance for Louisiana Main Street managers and staff from the LA Division of Historic Preservation to discuss current and upcoming projects.

Roderick Scott, CFM – Flood Mitigation Industry Association

Upcoming Louisiana Resilience Revolving Loan Program and USACE Projects – Dry Flood Proofing Buildings

Adapting our historic buildings for wind and flood is critical, while we are rehabilitating our historic buildings. With increasing insurance costs, reducing the flood and wind hazard risk is an important factor for sustainability.
Soon, the LA Resilience Revolving Loan Program will provide property owners a low interest long-term loan to finance the retrofit adaptation projects while the historic property owner can access/ utilize income tax credits for these scopes of work. In addition, the revolving loan program can be used by the state to match the federal flood risk reduction project requirements. Learn how these various programs can be used to incentivize the adaptation projects and prepare historic buildings for extended use.

Andrew Tingler – President, Cameron Parish Preservation Alliance

Saving the Sabine Pass Lighthouse

The Sabine Pass Lighthouse went into operation in 1857. It remained lit for 95 years with the exception of a brief period during the Civil War when it was temporarily shut down. The light was permanently extinguished by the Coast Guard in 1952 when modern technology made it obsolete. The wharfs, keeper’s house and wooden outbuilding have all been destroyed by marsh fire. The Cameron Preservation Alliance is stabilizing and restoring the historical structure and funding the project through a grassroots effort.

Patrick West – Associate, Stonehenge Capital

Incentives for Rehabilitating Larger Historic Buildings

USDA Rural Development

Louisiana Rural Development Partnership Opportunities

Louisiana’s land mass is 80% rural and this is home to 28.5% of the state’s population. From heritage farmsteads to small towns, these areas help define our diverse culture. Join us as USDA staff share resources in Business, Community, and Housing Programs such as grants, loans and loan guarantees to help our rural areas thrive.

Federal Emergency Management Agency – Panel Discussion

Arts, Culture, and Humanities represent the soul of a community. It is the fabric that clothes the community’s essence in its vibrant and vulnerable state. It represents a strength the community relies on during disaster recovery to empower resilience; yet it remains an underserved community with equitable opportunities in emergency preparedness. Moreover, critical artistic representatives including museums, historic preservation structures, oral storytellers and folklife curators receive remnants of the resources obtained.

The purpose of this panel discussion is to provide a platform to recognize inequities of emergency preparedness within the arts, culture, and humanities communities, and provide strategies to not exacerbate them. The session format will provide example case studies and overview presentations from appropriate (FEMA) departments including Mitigation and Environment and Historic Preservation.

Maida Owens, Director, Louisiana Folklife Program

Bayou Culture Collaborative

 The goal of this project is to offer communities in coastal parishes opportunities to learn traditions or document them. In 2018, the Louisiana Division of the Arts and Louisiana Folklore Society began conversations about the need to help communities deal with cultural issues while facing land loss. Learn more about their work to document the traditional knowledge and ways of Louisiana coastal culture.

Dr. Catherine Cooper NCPTT, National Park Service

Capturing the Faerie Playhouse, New Orleans: Documenting at-risk queer spaces through virtual tours and oral histories

The Faerie Playhouse was the home of Stewart Butler, an activist for human rights and the LGBTQ+ community and remains important to the local community after Stewart’s passing in March 2020. According to notes written by Stewart and remembrances of the community, the iconic pink Creole cottage decorated with red hearts on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans served as a playhouse, wedding chapel, youth refuge, memorial garden, meeting place, hospice and art gallery. It served these roles and many more since Stewart and his partner Alfred purchased the home in 1979 and continues to do so, though the future of the home is uncertain after Stewart’s passing.

In July 2022, a team from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) collected oral histories from friends and family of Stewart Butler and scanned the Faerie Playhouse using Matterport photogrammetry and virtual-tour technology in order to capture the space. These materials will be used to create a full interpretive tour of the Faerie Playhouse. NCPTT hopes to use this project as a template on which to expand and capture the tangible and intangible aspects of other at-risk sites of importance to LGBTQ+ communities throughout the South.