Memphis Hosts State Preservation Conference
by Sarah Hadskey, AIA

Get out your calendar and write this down: Thursday, March 27 through Saturday, March 29, the Tennessee Preservation Trust Fourth Annual Statewide Preservation Conference. Subtitled People, Places, and Things, the conference is an event that Memphis Heritage members and preservationists throughout the state and Mid-South region will definitely want to attend.  The opportunity to gather new knowledge in four separate conference tracts and to visit two of Memphis’s outstanding historic homes will make this one of the most exciting preservation gatherings in Memphis in years.

Social activities punctuate the three-day conference, which kicks off with an ice-breaker reception Thursday evening at the Center for Southern Folklore.  An evening party at the 1871 Second Empire style Woodruff-Fontaine House follows Friday’s full slate of seminars. Then, if you have the stamina, there’s a trolley tour of the South Main Arts District.  A “must attend” event is the Saturday evening party at the antebellum Hunt-Phelan house, the city's grandest remaining Greek Revival home.  Throughout the conference, attendees can participate in the Tennessee Preservation Trust’s (TPT) first annual silent auction, which will feature a heady array of items and services.

The conference will offer four separate educational tracts over three days: Main Street Redevelopment, Design Issues in Historic Preservation, Non-Profit Organizations, and Historic Church Preservation. Under the “Design Issues” tract, two case studies on the Structural Aspects of Preservation will be offered by the Memphis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) on Friday, March 28.  Architects will receive one Continuing Education Unit for each structural case study session they attend.

A special feature of the conference is the partnership between the TPT and Philadelphia’s Partners for Sacred Places, which will present the “Historic Church Preservation” tracts.  Practical help from national experts on caring for historic houses of worship and hope for congregations across the region arrives right here in Memphis in eight educational seminars spread over the three days of the conference.  These workshops are designed especially for those who care about the continued use of Tennessee’s historic places of worship.  Topics include: Sacred Places on Main Street, Rural Churches: Strategies for Active Use and Adaptive Reuse, Documenting the Region’s Historic African-American Churches,  Energy Conservation, Making a New Case for Building and Programs--Your Sacred Place is a Community Asset, Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign?, and Serving Families in Sacred Places.  Members of churches from neighboring states are also invited to attend and learn.  
    
The deadline for early registration is March 15, 2003. The full conference registration includes the Thursday night reception at Center for Southern Folklore, the Friday night reception at the Woodruff-Fontaine House, and an (optional) discounted $15 ticket to the Saturday night party at the Hunt-Phelan House. (Non-discounted tickets to the Hunt-Phelan party are $40.) Registration is $65 for TPT members, $90 for non-members, and $40 for students.  A registration fee of $40 is also available for a single day of the conference.  The on-site registration is $90 per person, but tours and special events may not be available. Registration during the conference will be at Central Station in the South Main Street Historic District on Thursday from 3 to 5 p.m., Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.  
    
A full conference program, registration form and information can be found at the TPT Web site www.tennesseepreservationtrust.org, or call the TPT office in Nashville at (615) 259-2289.  The TPT is a membership-based historic preservation advocacy organization for Tennessee and the statewide affiliate of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Sarah Hadskey is an architect and the principal of SAM Studio Art and Architecture and can be reached at (901) 323-1637.  She is a member of the Memphis Heritage Publications Committee.