With a history dedicated to preservation, Conservation Society marks its 100th year

The first meeting of the Conservation Society of San Antonio was held 100 years ago in March 1924 in an old stone house belonging to Lucy Maverick. 

Later, the home was deconstructed for a highway. 

But the founders, 13 determined women, had set in motion the preservation of countless structures and cultural assets in San Antonio by establishing one of the first conservation groups in the nation. 

On a recent March morning, members of the Conservation Society gathered at the 1904 Lucy Maverick house to kick off a celebration of the organization’s centennial anniversary and its role in conserving the downtown landmarks, historic districts and customs of a 306-year-old city.

“It’s a milestone to celebrate,” said Barbara Johnson, chairwoman of the centennial committee, who — like her mother before her — served as president of the Conservation Society. 

“It’s something in our lifetime that we’re not going to ever repeat … and there’s just a lot to celebrate,” Johnson said. 

The group’s longevity is due to perseverance, and its reach has extended far beyond San Antonio, said Vince Michael, executive director of the Conservation Society of San Antonio. But its mission has always been broader than brick and mortar. 

“What people forget is that we give historic grants for both buildings and educational purposes,” Michael said. “We give scholarships to [UTSA] students in historic preservation majors [and] we fund a professor in that. We fight the fight when a building that needs to be saved or the land that needs to be saved comes up.

“And in the meantime, we’re building the base of people who are going to take over the next steps of this.”

The Conservation Society is supported by a membership of 1,100 people and also the proceeds from A Night in Old San Antonio, an annual Fiesta event now in its 76th year. This year’s NIOSA is April 23-26 in La Villita, another place important to the city’s history that the group has worked to save. 

And while NIOSA is about merriment and the spirit of Old San Antonio, the resulting funding is critical to historic preservation and the city’s character. 

“We’ve got to work at keeping San Antonio, San Antonio — it’s not like any other place,” said Kathy Krnavek, president of the Conservation Society. “I don’t know why we keep striving to be Dallas or Houston. They’re jealous of us. Let’s keep it that way.”

Conservation takes many forms, including the relocation of structures as in the case of the Fairmount Hotel in the 1980s. Maverick also managed to save her home with a move. The artist transported it, stone by stone, to a property near the Medina River in Castroville, rebuilding it with a new second story and giving it a second chapter.

‘Old buildings, documents’

The genesis for the Conservation’s founding was in fact a building that no longer stands — and not saving the San Antonio River Walk as is often thought.

Concerned about a street-widening project that threatened the 1859 Market House, an example of Greek Revival architecture, Emily Edwards and Rena Maverick Green, a sister to Lucy Maverick, brought together 13 women to advocate for its preservation. 

They decided the organization would “co-operate in the preservation of the Missions, to conserve Old Buildings, Documents, Pictures, Names, National Beauty and anything admirable distinctive of San Antonio,” according to the Texas State Historical Association.

The Conservation Society was unique in that approach, said Lewis Fisher, author of Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage, a book about preservation history in San Antonio.

“The most unusual thing about the Conservation Society when it was established in 1924, is that it was organized not by a group of historic preservationists or people who were wanting to focus on landmarks but a group of artists who were charmed by the city and its unique character,” Fisher said. 

Like the places the group has helped to preserve, that mission has remained steadfast. 

“They were trying to preserve not just landmarks but the the appeal of the city and its historic names and scenery and customs,” he added. “And that is what they are doing now.”

In recent months, the Conservation Society has moved from its longtime headquarters to a circa-1900 residence at 1146 S. Alamo St., in the King William Historic District. In 2021, the group put up for sale the 151-year-old Anton Wulff House that it saved from demolition in 1974, and is now negotiating with a potential buyer.

Though the Market House fell to the wrecking ball, its facade was replicated in the San Pedro Playhouse.

And the Conservation Society went on to fulfill its lofty goal and become instrumental in national preservation efforts. 

Influence and preservation

The 100th anniversary is significant in the preservation world. 

For perspective, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit dedicated to saving all of America’s historic sites, is marking its 75th year in existence. 

Local government’s focus on preserving places of historical importance began in the late 1960s with an ordinance establishing the Office of Historic Preservation. In 1974, the Conservation Society’s historic buildings chairwoman was named the city’s first historic preservation officer.

Almost 50 years after the Conservation Society was founded, it led the creation of Preservation Action, a national grassroots lobby for historic preservation that pushed for federal historic rehabilitation tax credit policies.

One of the local group’s earliest efforts was saving the doors of the granary at Mission San Jose, said Maria Watson Pfeiffer, who served on the Conservation Society board in the 1970s and later as administrative director. 

“That evolved into decades of preserving the San Antonio Missions, which eventually, through a lot of lobbying … resulted in the creation of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park,” she said. 

Pfeiffer followed in the footsteps of her mother, Elsa Buss Watson, in pursuing historic preservation and supporting the Conservation Society in the 1960s. As a child, “I watched as she threw herself in front of the bulldozers literally and figuratively, and so I have many memories of those early days,” Pfeiffer said. 

She also watched over the years as the Conservation Society failed in its efforts to save some historic structures, like the Rivas House on West Houston Street and the Finck Cigar Factory.

One project Pfeiffer led while with the group was relocating the historic Fairmount Hotel in 1985 from its original Bowie Street address to where it sits today on South Alamo Street — a move that made way for the Shops at Rivercenter.

She said she’s watched over the years how the group has become more organized and professional and has worked to maintain relationships with local officials, staff and even private developers to make an impact. 

“I think developers over the years have come to understand that it can be beneficial to save places,” Pfeiffer said. 

Today, the Conservation Society’s efforts are combined with those of other local preservation groups, including the Historic Westside Residents Association and the San Antonio African American Communication Archive & Museum. 

Preserving the city’s history is important to its future, Fisher said. 

“As San Antonio doubles in size over the next 10 or 20 years … [the society] will be a very important element in the preservation of the character of San Antonio, which is what makes people want to come here and which is what makes us one of the nation’s top travel destinations,” he said. 

“The society cannot get too much credit for the tourism industry which exists today,” Fisher said. “If they hadn’t done the work that they had done, we would not be as interesting a city as we are.”