Barbara Hoffstot's legacy lives on in history

Her Pittsburgh house still stands strong, untouched by modernism — not even air-conditioner wires run through its backbone. It’s exactly how Barbara Drew Hoffstot would want the house she once lived in to remain.

Much of her personal legacy was built before she was born. All of it still stands today.

“It’s a jewel of a house,” Rollins College Department of Modern Languages and Literature administrative assistant Ruth Jackson said. “She saved amazing structures just like it across the country.”

It’s been almost 20 years since her Hoffstot’s death and her legacy — to stand up against corporations and development to preserve historic homes, landmarks and architecture — is still continuing on.

“Barbara Drew Hoffstot was an amazing woman,” Jackson said. “She took on men and cities and won in an era in which women simply did not do such things. She was a pioneer not only of historical preservation, but in women’s meaningful involvement in civic affairs.”

On March 14 Hoffstot, who fought for decades to preserve history, was recognized for those achievements when Rollins College inducted her into the Rollins College Walk of Fame.

“She fired, for the preservation of historical sites, the ‘shot heard round the world,’ you might say, just as the heroes of the American Revolution did in the struggle for our national independence,” Jackson said.

Hoffstot’s journey began in Pittsburgh, where she took on legislation and fought to save homes and buildings she believed were historically significant to local culture. Her journey continued when she and her family moved to Palm Beach.

“She was very instrumental in assisting with the legislation that ultimately produced the National Register of Historic Places,” Executive Assistant to the Rollins College President Lorrie Kyle said. “I think that her efforts in Pittsburgh and in Palm Beach have extended kind of like a wave across the United States to touch all of our historic places and towns across the country.”

Hoffstot was not afraid to stand up for what she believed in, no matter what it took.

“She was a force to be contented with,” Chairman of Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, John Mashek, said. “I would say Barbara used her experience from Pittsburgh to wake up the community down here on the value of land marking.”

President of Pittsburgh History and Landsmark Foundation, Arthur Ziegler, worked with Hoffstot in Pittsburgh, and continues to carry on her passion today.

“We are continuing to utilize and perpetuate the culture that we formed over the years together,” he said. “And I think that she would be quite pleased with us here in Pittsburgh.”

Hoffstot has also inspired her cousin, Rollins College grad Will Graves, to continue her preservation battle. He is doing his part to carry on her journey in protecting inner cities by preventing east and west Winter Park from overdevelopment, displacement and gentrification.

“When someone is messing up your town you’ll find the words … and I’m doing my best, in my little way to carry on the cause,” Graves said. “Barbara would be proud of me.”

Although Hoffstot is now gone, her legacy is still running strong in Winter Park.

“I believe that people in Winter Park and cities around America have taken inspiration from her work and rolled up their sleeves and said, ‘If this woman can do this for Palm Beach, or Pittsburgh, then we to can continue on save beautiful sites for future generations to enjoy,’” Jackson said. “I think that her work inspired local people to take a look at Winter Park through new eyes and say, ‘We have so much to be proud of, let’s save these places, let’s put these places on the National Registry.’”