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Heritage Conservation Network

www.heritageconservation.net

J udith Broeker is a modern-day Indiana Jones. She's not swinging from vines or searching for stolen loot, but she's battling the villains of time and neglect, and rescuing architectural treasures around the globe that are in danger of being lost forever.

Broeker is the program director and the co-founder, along with Jamie Donahoe, of the Heritage Conservation Network (HCN). Headquartered in Boulder, the nonprofit firm organizes the preservation of historic structures located in North America and overseas.

Since 2001 the company has tackled a variety of diverse projects, everything from replacing fire-damaged rafters on an endangered structure in Alabama to restoring 400-year-old tiles in a Sicilian church.

Upcoming projects include masonry repair in the Bronx and restoration projects in Slovenia, Albania and Kenya.

Each team has at least one technical expert and a variety of volunteers who gladly pay for the chance to get hands-on experience in a historical setting. Vacations that include a service component, such as the restoration projects sponsored by HCN, have mushroomed in popularity over the past few years.

In 2005, the Travel Industry Association announced that more than 55 million Americans have mixed downtime with good deeds, and the number is rising. A 2007 Travelocity survey indicated that the number of travelers planning to volunteer had doubled from the year before.

For Broeker, the inspiration to venture into historic preservation arrived in the mail, courtesy of a newsletter describing new career trends.

"I was reading through it, and it was like, my calling," Broeker says.

Then she found herself in a bookstore, in front of a section devoted to volunteer vacations. The circuit was complete on a proverbial light-bulb moment.

"I love to travel," Broeker remembers thinking, "and here's the perfect way for me to travel and do preservation, all in one package."

She tested the waters first, with pilot studies in Colorado and Wyoming in the late '90s. The first project was based at the historic Ritter Ranch in southern Colorado near La Veta.

Participants worked with plaster, and learned to make adobe bricks.

Working with adobe was "messy and muddy, but really fun," says Deborah Millennor. As business manager for Atkinson-Noland & Associates, a firm that does a great deal of preservation work, the trip was a rare chance for Millennor to leave the paperwork behind and get some field experience.

"You really get a different sense of history when you are in it -hands-on, living in it, learning about it, while you're there," Millennor says.

"It was a good education, as well as just fun. It was a good time."

A significant number of HCN volunteers are students or professionals with connections to history or a related field, such as architecture. There are a large number of retirees also, especially baby boomers who prefer to stay active; and people who simply enjoy group travel or vacations with a purpose.

"This was one of the most memorable educational and cultural programs in my life," says Jessamyn Miller, who traveled to Slovenia with HCN in 2006 while she was studying art history at UC Santa Cruz. Miller was looking for some experience in the conservation field, and found HCN online.

The project in Slovenia, which was formerly part of Yugoslavia, is one of Broeker's favorites. It involved a 17th-century chapel built into a manor house, with elaborate decorations including fanciful cherubs and an ornate ceiling. The chapel was completed in 1631, but the original paint was covered over in the 1800s.

Armed with scalpels and copious amounts of patience, the HCN team was tasked with carefully scraping away the top layer of paint to restore the original scheme. Underneath, the original colors were revealed to be white and cream, with elegant silver and gold detailing.

Although the team had just a few weeks to spend at the site, the community was inspired by their efforts and ended up completing the project on their own. As Miller is quick to point out, though, "it wasn't just about scraping paint."

The gathering was a truly multicultural affair, with team members from the U.S., England, India and Belgium.

"It was more than conservation, it was a cultural exchange," Miller says.

Broeker says the benefits extend beyond mere structural repairs.

Preservation instills pride of heritage in the community, and the salvaging of original materials benefits the environment.

The real surprise has been the economic impact of preservation efforts.

For many small communities, historic buildings represent an important source of revenue. Heritage tourism is hugely popular, and repairing a crumbling building or grist mill may be the path to a profitable future.

"If they lose [historic architecture], if the local folks don't understand that the rest of the world would love to see it, so they either let it fall down or tear it down, then they've lost a huge resource and a means of making a sustainable income," Broeker says.

"Things like that, you go, 'Ah, we do have fun, but this actually is more important than just restoring buildings'."