Collection Guide
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Historic Environment Consultants collection
MS0065
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Center for Sacramento History
Title: Historic Environment Consultants collection
Identifier/Call Number: MS0065
Physical Description:
100.97 Linear Feet
48 cartons, 2 manuscript boxes, 3 oversize boxes, 28 blueprint boxes, oversize folders.
Date (bulk): 1973-2019
The collection is open for research.
All requests to publish or quote from private manuscripts held by the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) must be submitted
in writing to csh@cityofsacramento.org. Permission for publication is given on behalf of CSH as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the patron.
No permission is necessary to publish or quote from public records.
[Identification of item and/or item number], [box and folder number], Historic Environment Consultants collection, MS0065,
Center for Sacramento History.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Historic Environment Consultants in 1998, 2000, 2007, and 2019 (accessions 1998/062, 2000/058, 2007/101, and 2019/054).
Processing and finding aid by Kim Hayden, 2022-2023.
Historic Environment Consultants was founded in Sacramento in 1977 by architectural historian Paula Boghosian, who has been
the principal consultant for the life of the company. The firm has helped preserve historical buildings, districts, and cultural
resources throughout the state, but mainly focused on Sacramento and the Sacramento area.
Boghosian was born in San Francisco on February 14, 1934. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in architecture
in 1955, and from UC Davis with a master's in community development in 1987. She moved to Sacramento in 1961, where she quickly
became involved in community activities and preservation of local historic structures. She started her company, Historic Environment
Consultants, in 1977 and her first major project was an intensive survey of historic homes in Sacramento. Historic Environment
Consultants has worked on many historic preservation projects, historic resource and property surveys, nominations to the
National Register of Historic Places and California Historical Landmarks, community and district surveys, environmental impact
reports, Historic American Building Surveys (HABS), and building restoration and maintenance projects. Boghosian's husband,
Don Cox, also works for the company as historian, researcher, writer, editor, and publication designer.
Boghosian has been a driving force in preserving Sacramento's historic architecture for decades. She developed a special interest
in Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium and worked on nominating it to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. She served
as a consultant for the team that rehabilitated the auditorium before its reopening in 1997, and she cowrote the book "Sacramento's
Memorial Auditorium: Seven Decades of Memories," published in 1997. Among some of her other accomplishments are the nomination
of the Masonic Temple to the National Register of Historic Places, and completing many projects for the Historic American
Building Survey.
In addition to her work with Historic Environment Consultants, Boghosian was elected the first chairperson of the Sacramento
Preservation Board in 1969; was on the national board of directors for the American Association of University Women (AAUW)
from 1973 to 1976; served on the City of Sacramento's Historic Structures Advisory Committee in 1972; and served for many
years on the California State Historical Resources Commission. She also served as the interim preservation director for the
City of Sacramento in 2003, and has worked with the State Office of Historic Preservation on the National Register of Historic
Places and California Historical Landmarks programs. Boghosian was a founding member of the California Preservation Foundation,
originally called Californians for Preservation Action, and she has taught and lectured on historic architecture. She has
also helped develop preservation programs and architectural guidelines.
The collection documents Historic Environment Consultants' work on projects needing historic preservation evaluation, including
historic districts, preservation districts, areas under development or redevelopment, and individual houses and buildings.
Properties include commercial, city, county, state, and federal buildings and properties; industrial and agricultural areas;
and private homes. About two-thirds of the collection documents properties within the city limits of Sacramento; the rest
documents properties in Sacramento County and Northern California, with a few properties in Southern California and Nevada.
Large Sacramento and Sacramento County projects include Downtown Infill, K Street Corridor, R Street Corridor, Richards Boulevard,
Sacramento Survey III, Memorial Auditorium, commercial properties on J Street, Southern Pacific Railyards, Sacramento Library
Plaza, Maydestone Apartments, Globe Mills, residential properties on Folsom Boulevard, and Florin and Old Florintown. Outside
of the Sacramento area, major projects include, the Miller House/Mary Aaron Museum in Marysville, Modesto Post Office, Pt.
Molate, Standard and New Standard (Tuolumne County), and the Washington Firehouse in West Sacramento.
Project files typically contain historic building survey forms, photographs of properties, field notes, historical research
on properties, maps, plans, environmental impact reports (EIRs), historic resource reports, other reports, meeting records,
and correspondence. While photographs are included with many projects, note that only records with a very large number of
photos have their own folders labeled "photographs." If a property does not have a dedicated "photographs" folder, its main
file could still contain photographs. Dates for the most part reflect the years the project was worked on. Copies of older
and undated material is often included as part of historical research.
Boghosian filed her job records by property or project, and that order has been kept here, with project records arranged first
by Sacramento project areas and districts, commercial and industrial properties, public properties, and residential properties,
followed by properties in Sacramento County, then outside of Sacramento County. One property can occasionally be found in
multiple series, having been evaluated at different times during different projects.
A small portion of the collection contains general reference material, and records related to other projects Boghosian worked
on outside of Historic Environment Consultants, including two books she co-wrote, "Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium: Seven
Decades of Memories" and "Vanishing Victorians," the Sacramento Historic Home Tour, and Sacramento walking tours.
Formats in the collection include paper documents; photographic prints, slides, and negatives; blueprints and plans; CDs;
VHS tapes and audiocassette tapes; and digital document and image files.
The collection is arranged into 5 series:
- Series 1. Sacramento projects
- Subseries 1.1. Project areas and districts
- Subseries 1.2. Commercial and industrial properties
- Subseries 1.3. Public properties
- Subseries 1.4. Residential properties
- Series 2. Sacramento County projects
- Series 3. Projects outside of Sacramento County
- Series 4. General reference, research, and administrative materials
- Series 5. Paula Boghosian's other projects
- Subseries 5.1. Sacramento Memorial Auditorium book project
- Subseries 5.2. Other projects