Conservancy News

The Santa Monica Conservancy is seeking new volunteers and docents. Volunteering is a unique opportunity to make an impact on historic preservation and meet others in the community who share your interest in local history and preservation. Opportunities are open to anyone with the time and interest. No prior experience is necessary. Apply online today or email us at volunteer@smconservancy.org for an application form.

Docent & Volunteer Opportunities

Our docents and volunteers actively engage a diverse audience locals, tourists, history buffs, preservationists, and students about the architecture, history, and importance of preserving our architectural heritage.

Annenberg Community Beach House Docent

Docents at the Happy Birthday Marion! celebration in 2019. Photo: Annenberg Community Beach House

This world-class destination attracts thousands of international tourists and local residents to its multi-faceted recreational and cultural activities year-round. The site originally was a lavish estate built by media tycoon William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s for actress Marion Davies, who hosted parties for the Hollywood crowd. The Guest House and pool, designed by acclaimed architect Julia Morgan, form the historic core of a place that has evolved over time to the free public beach club that opened in 2009. The ACBH combines historic restoration/adaptive reuse with new facilities by Fred Fisher & Partners that retain memories of the Hearst/Davies era.

Tours are offered weekly, Friday – Sunday from 12-2 p.m. during the spring, fall, and winter. During the summer, tours are offered weekly, Friday – Monday from 12-2 p.m. Docents are asked to volunteer twice a month. Apply now!

Downtown Walking Tour Docent

Photo: Stephanie Plomarity for Santa Monica Travel & Tourism

Santa Monica’s downtown is a kaleidoscope of architecture, history, and economic growth from its beginnings in 1875 to the modern metropolis it is today. This signature tour takes a deep dive into Santa Monica places and stories as well as the evolution of the city, providing a rich educational experience for guests. Tours begin at the city’s first landmark, the 1875 Rapp Saloon, which at one time served as City Hall, and include sections of the Promenade, Ocean Avenue and the Pier, and conclude at a lavish Art Deco hotel that housed a speakeasy during Prohibition.

Tours are offered every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. Docents lead tours independently and are asked to volunteer once every other month. Docent trainings will be held on Saturdays at 10 a.m. Apply now!

Preservation Resource Center Docent

Docents at the Shotgun House in 2019.

The last surviving shotgun house in Ocean Park, this little house narrowly escaped demolition through the efforts of a coalition of community activists assisted by the City of Santa Monica. Shotgun houses are small wood frame homes with rooms stacked one behind the other without a hallway, once popular in Ocean Park’s early days for beachfront living. Under the guardianship of the Conservancy, the shotgun house was moved twice before undergoing a comprehensive rehabilitation to become the Conservancy’s headquarters and Preservation Resource Center. Serving as a model of adaptive reuse, the Center provides free resources and tours to our community.

Tours are currently offered one weekend a month from 12-2 p.m. and will be gradually expanded. Docents are asked to volunteer twice a month. Apply now!

Program Committee Volunteer

A docent with guests at our South Beach Tour in 2019.

Volunteers develop and present physical and virtual educational programs, such as tours of historic places, visits to landmark buildings, explorations of the City’s heritage, meetings and lectures. Past programs have included tours of Adelaide Drive, the Third Street Historic District, Palisades Park, landmark homes, the city’s street murals and more. The Committee’s award-winning Santa Monica Mosaic webinar series explores numerous aspects of our diverse cultural history, including African American, Japanese American, Jewish American, Mexican American, and Tongva communities.

The Program Committee conducts monthly planning meetings and presents or supports events throughout the year, including the Conservancy’s Annual Meeting in the spring, a fall tour, a holiday party, the ongoing Mosaic series and other webinars. In addition, the Committee contributes text, photo and video content to the Conservancy’s website. Committee volunteers are aligned with projects and tasks that reflect their interests, skills, experience and personal schedules. Apply now!

Our team will review applications and reach out with additional information. Thank you for your interest in our docent and volunteer programs!

The Santa Monica Conservancy presented Santa Monica Mosaic: Safe Haven, a webinar in our Santa Monica Mosaic series, on Sunday, April 10. Join author and Hollywood historian Donna Rifkind as she gives an illustrated presentation about the exiled Jewish artists who settled in and around Santa Monica Canyon during World War II.

Discover the journey of screenwriter Salka Viertel, who was born in Sambor, which is known today as part of western Ukraine. A close friend and collaborator of Greta Garbo, Viertel hosted numerous Sunday afternoon salons at her cozy home on Mabery Road, creating an artistic refuge for literary and Hollywood figures like Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin.

On the other side of the canyon, German-Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta hosted fellow emigres at stimulating social gatherings at their residence, Villa Aurora. Today, Villa Aurora is an artists residence and “stands as a memorial to all the artists and intellectuals who found refuge from Nazi persecution and had tremendous impact on the cultural life of the United States’ West Coast.”

Featured speaker:

Donna Rifkind, a Santa Monica native, is the author of The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler’s Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood, which was nominated for a 2020 National Jewish Book Award. She also wrote the afterword for the re-issue of Salka Viertel’s 1969 memoir, The Kindness of Strangers, in a new edition published by NYRB Classics in 2019. Donna’s book reviews and essays appear frequently in Commentary, The American Scholar, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and many other publications. She was a finalist for the 2006 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle and served as a panel moderator at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival for many years.

Photos: Historical Marker Database

In particular, Reframe will focus on centering the voices and experiences of communities of color who have been historically excluded from discourse about representation in Civic spaces. Belmar History + Art (2019-2021) was a demonstration project that inspired this initiative, and Santa Monica Cultural Affairs is now embarking on a public engagement process around the WPA-era murals by Stanton McDonald-Wright in the historic City Hall lobby.

This will include gathering a diverse array of voices and perspectives through a series of community conversations and art activations, with the goal of commissioning new artworks that will convey more of this land’s history and better express our community’s values today.

The survey seeks to learn more about people’s ties to Santa Monica and their reflections on place and belonging. Please respond at the link below to help shape discussions and activities regarding the City Hall murals going forward!

Take the survey online.

On February 22nd, City Council unanimously approved a motion agreeing to the Santa Monica Conservancy’s request to not proceed with covering the historic murals in City Hall.

“Request of Councilmembers de la Torre and Parra that Council directs staff to no longer install a temporary scrim over the Stanton Macdonald-Wright murals in the lobby of Santa Monica City Hall and to instead direct staff to launch of a process that engages and educates our community and results in the addition of artwork within the lobby to create a more inclusive and complete story of our City’s history and vision for our future to advance the City’s commitment to equity, justice and respect for all and, in the interim, direct staff to explore the creation of a temporary lobby display around the themes that will be explored during the larger community education and engagement process.” (See the City Council agenda here.)

Photos: Historical Marker Database

This motion reversed a prior action taken by City Council in May 2021 to cover the murals with a scrim because they were perceived as racist and not reflective of our current values. The Conservancy’s leadership helped to forge this positive outcome by advocating to preserve the murals in City Hall, which are landmarked, and providing education from a historic perspective while endorsing the creation of new information and public art to promote racial justice. To all our members and friends, who wrote letters and emails to City Council to support our position, we thank you – we could not have done it without your support.

Councilmembers de la Torre and Parra thanked the Conservancy for its constructive role and described some of the future ideas to implement their motion: creating new materials to engage children in understanding the themes of the murals and hiring a consultant to steer the community education and involvement process. We will keep you informed of those next steps.

Notable in this controversy was the failure of City staff to use the legal protections of our landmarks ordinance to acknowledge this potentially adverse action, and to refer this matter to the Landmarks Commission. The WPA-era murals by renowned artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright, a Santa Monica resident, were identified as character-defining features of City Hall when the building was designated in 1979 and reaffirmed in numerous City documents subsequently. The Conservancy will need to follow up to ensure that all material and spatial characteristics of City Hall interiors are recognized as having historic significance so that there is no misunderstanding in the future.