Awards honor Pleasanton’s past

The Pleasanton Heritage Association is acknowledging residents who have restored six of downtown’s cherished homes of yesteryear while carefully preserving their historic features.

At the Historic Homes Awards presentation from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday at Museum on Main, the association will give plaques to the six homeowners, and the event will include vendors who have worked on Pleasanton restorations and talks by preservationists.

“Our mission is preservation of our historic properties through education and recognition,” association president Linda Garbarino said. “Our June 3 event is geared to that mission.”

Four vendors will display restoration materials and information about their services, such as historic home paints and wood windows, and they will be available to converse about the preservation processes. These vendors have been used successfully by Pleasanton Heritage Association members.

“We really want to help people understand if they are going to make changes or additions there are ways to do that without jeopardizing the historic homes they have,” Garbarino said.

“Typically people have added on to the back of homes over the years, and the city has set up some municipal codes with firmer language,” she added. “This makes it much easier if people want to make changes or do add-ons. For the most part, people have done a really good job with that.”

The Pleasanton Heritage Association works with the city when requested, looking at plans and making suggestions.

“We help so they don’t change the significance of the house,” Garbarino said. “That’s the goal.”

Garbarino lives in an 1895 Victorian house on Division Street.

“All of us who live in historic homes have the feeling that we are only borrowing them and we will pass them on,” she said.

She called the historic homes “a nod to quieter times, when life was a little slower.” And she noted that in the past few years, residents living on the outskirts of town have begun moving back as homes in the downtown area become available.

This year’s six awardees were selected through an online survey of members of the Pleasanton Heritage Association. Each of the six homes being honored is among the 91 homes now designated as historic resources:

* Greg and Sylvia Desin — 426 Division St.

* Roger and Karen Moirano — 517 St. Mary St.

* Marguerite Magoffin — 621 St. Mary St.

* Dora and John Futterman — 648 St. John St.

* Joe and Katy Terry — 4389 Second St.

* John and Cheryl Benson — 4397 Second St.

Sunday’s event will include historic preservationist Stacy Farr offering a perspective on preservation and California’s Mill’s Act, which gives economic incentives, administered by local governments, for the restoration of historic buildings by private property owners.

Also someone from the Pleasanton Community Development Department will provide an update on the current Downtown Specific Plan recommendations, which will impact the historic core of the city during the next 20 years.

In addition to the plaques, which the association will attach to each restored house, the award winners will receive a drawing and a miniature wood replica of their home created by Pleasanton artist Gary Winter.

This is the fifth year the bronze plaques have been presented but only the second year for the awards to be presented publicly at the Museum on Main, 603 Main St.

“The Museum on Main, housing the Amador Historic Society, supports these awards as they meet our shared goals to reach out to our residents to profile and date historic homes in the five heritage neighborhoods within the Downtown Specific Planning Area,” Garbarino said.

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