Phone Calls to Tony Ciani

John called. I think it was in 1975. “Are you Bungalow Tony, the guy I hear is trying to save two bungalows at the beach in La Jolla? I think I can help you,” and he did.

John called. It was 1977 or ’78. His voice was deeper and raspier than the usual rustic tone: “This is Vito, I’ve got a job for you (before I could say who or what), Save the Mission Beach Roller Coaster. You’ll know what to do when you read the City’s EIR.” The Environmental Impact Report stated that demolition of the Roller Coaster would not be significant, because it did not qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. It’s a long story, but the Roller Coaster was listed on the Register and became in a National Landmark and thanks to John, thrilling folks to this day.

John called often, year after year, to remind his tribe of advocates, that we were part of a “statewide conspiracy to preserve California’s history.”

I had emailed a guy at SOHP named Jay Correia, the senior staff historian, asking about submitting what will be a difficult (controversial) NR nomination. I told him about John Merritt's call instructing me to save the Roller Coaster and how this felt like that day...then, after sending that off, I got Wayne's email informing me John passed on. No doubt, John made a flyby to make the "pondering" thoughts I had into action, Preservation Action! 

I loved John! And will forever.

He was fearless, yet guided the California Preservation Foundation with humility and humor. John remains a hero to this day, and his work will forever inspire students of history and planning for our future.

A Tribute from Architect Milford Wayne Donaldson

John was one of my best friends for over 40 years and I am still saddened by his passing. I will miss his infectious laugh and the "in your face," preservation love feasts, the out-of-the-way drives to meet weird and interesting people, and quite frankly, to sit in his house with Betty, as Laurie and I did a couple of weeks ago, and while reminiscing talking about the future of preservation in California.  

From his earliest days as a staffer at Pasadena Historic Preservation, where he and Robert Winter coined the phrase “Bungalow Heaven”, through the transformation of Californians for Preservation Action into California Preservation Foundation John transformed my thinking about about what preservation meant to the common citizens, folks that did not know they were preservationists but led the "good fight."

After a brief employment at the California Office of Historic Preservation, John went on to be Executive Director of the California Preservation Foundation. While I was CPF President, Bruce Judd and I took John from his home office, where he still “pasted up” the CPF Newsletter in his back room on Hopkins Street, kicking and screaming, to an office in downtown Oakland, complete with a secretary and computers. A new era for CPF began and John enthusiastically directed the CPF membership to new frontiers.

In Southern California, in the 1970s, way before the current Mid-Century Modern fads, John convinced the conservative National Register of Historic Places that a 1953 McDonald's in Downey was eligible for listing. He once said, “Often, these efforts on behalf of the recent past are greeted with—to put it politely—great skepticism. I'm sure the public is not sure whether the advocates are serious." His advocacy to stop the 710 Freeway through South Pasadena is legendary. 

One of the most significant efforts by John, as the result of a year’s work, while Executive Director of CPF, was his publication in 1989, History at Risk : Loma Prieta, Seismic Safety & Historic Buildings. A study that shared what California learned from the disaster, as well as a guide towards improvement of those aspects of existing local/state policies/programs. This pivotal work led to many changes in governmental institutions including FEMA, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the way California counties and their emergency response teams address damaged historic buildings.

John, throughout the years, has helped professionals and the public understand the value of preservation in fostering development that is environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. John’s collaborative approach to public advocacy and education has elevated the integration of preservation principles into mainstream developmental practices.

John had a provocative and magnetic personality that is reminiscent of Hawk, played by Tommy Lee-Jones in Space Cowboys, always challenging destiny with an attitude while at the same time continuing to triumph in the context of our current efforts of preserving California’s heritage. John was a passionate preservationist who has made exceptional contributions to the knowledge and promotion of historic preservation through his advocacy, outreach, education, and publications. 

I will miss him forever.

Just Arrived: the New Merritt Special!

After two boys (the youngest already 8), my surprise of a father was the girl his parents had never dared hope for. Susan, she would be named. And he was pretty enough to be a girl with his dark curls, big blue eyes, and unguarded, dimpled smile. Here, they compare him to a car—if only he'd had that Two Lung Power at the end...

Later they even had a portrait of him painted. This was 1945 and the painter German, so we got to find out that he also would have made a great blond, and I’ve always wondered what it must have been like to grow up with that obviously expensive, utterly erroneous picture of oneself asking whether you were going to believe the painter of the master race or your lying eyes.

My sister just reminded me that my Dad wrote about this painting in a mini-memoir he wrote for a friend some years back:
"What the war gave me was an oil portrait of me that hung on the wall at home long after I left. My father had convinced some German prisoner-of-war in Ogden, a painter, to create this masterpiece working from a black and white, fuzzy studio photograph. The German did a good job; it was me, but he had insisted I be Nordic, had given me golden curls, and refused to change his version or vision of what kids should look like..."

Stories of my Dad

Stories of My Dad

(Erin Merritt)

I sat down to write my father’s obituary, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t put in even a quarter of his professional accomplishments—which all involved words like “changed the way we all” and “convinced against all odds” and “saved from the wrecking ball the now-hip such-and-such” and “coined the term…” I mean, the facts are never the person, but in my dad’s case… even as impressive as they are, they’re more about his passion and no-nonsense attitude than any ambition whatsoever. He marched to the beat of his own violin, and maybe no one else could figure out how to march to a violin, but he sure did make it look fun enough that we all wanted to try. He could have been a Tom Sawyer, making us all paint the fence for him, but instead, he noticed old ladies who couldn’t afford to keep up their houses and led teams to completely refurbish them so they couldn’t be torn down for a freeway. That’s the kind of guy he was—a hero to the “little people” and a total pain in the ass to the people in power. And yes, he did it because it was the right thing to do, but I have to say he didn’t forget to have a damned good time doing it. It’s entirely his fault that I am unable to work in a field that pays well—it was so clear that work was meant to be its own reward—and that I can’t repress my need to work only where and how my passion leads me—he always seemed completely free—even untamable—while at work. Once when I asked him what he had done in the Planning Department in Pasadena when I was a little kid, he told me he looked at plans that came in to build awful things and rooted around until he found some way to thwart those plans. I have zero doubt that he followed the law to the letter, but the joy was in finding that letter that let him redirect power back to the people.

But obits can’t be that long and shouldn’t be that gleefully revengeful, so I tried to stick to what might matter to others. My mother wanted me to get across how devoted he was to his family; my sister wanted me to spell out how much he cherished my Mom; and I did want people to know that unexpectedly gentle side of a man I generally picture in mid-grimace of glee, a la Animal (who was of course one of his favorite Muppets, because my dad did know all the Muppets and did play favorites). Though we never doubted it for a moment, we grew up with him never voicing the words “I love you” in our presence—I actually picked up the phone right in front of him when I heard him on another line saying almost resignedly, “Well, she’s my daughter, and I love her” about my sister once. I reached her and told her right in front of him what he had said. He demonstrated his love by spending hours on the floor playing with us when we were wee bairns, by reading to us (his “Large and Growly Bear” was a national treasure of such sensitive performance it should have been made available to all the world’s children) and most of all by listening to us, no matter how old or young, how happy the news or how awful. And yet in later life, he became straight up cuddly, very affectionate. He wasn’t always graceful at it, but never anything less than heart felt; he moved beyond his training, I guess, because it mattered to him. So yes, of course, we have to pay homage to that, but at the cost of trying to paint a picture of him digging up a weed and yelling at it “Booooooooo!!!!” before throwing it away? Can that even be painted? “Boooooooo!” like he was at the ballpark, face to face with a player for the team he called the Giant Sucks. That’s love too. Enlisting my children to enjoy weeding by making it a rooting event in more ways than one. Making hard work irresistible fun.

So... since obituaries can't contain ramblings like these let alone stories, I'm writing some down here. Join me. Send your stories and I'll enter them as posts. You can enter them in the comments or email them to me at erinmerritt1@gmail.com (please note the "1" at the end of my name)