Post #748789 by tikilongbeach on Fri, Aug 7, 2015 3:03 PM

Esotouric posted on Facebook that after the conservation fight nobody filed the needed paperwork.

http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b66e7337c52f4fda66146f8ed&id=e9a9a53943

...How had this happened? Wasn't the Formosa on the short list of official landmarks of West Hollywood, and thus protected from insensitive alteration? Shouldn't there have been some warning if it was at risk of such an extreme remodel?

These questions nagged at our friends Kate Eggert and Krisy K. Gosney, the dedicated preservationists behind West Hollywood Heritage Project. So they started digging into the Mystery of the Mucked Up Formosa, and what they found was truly shocking.

Because it turns out the Formosa wasn't quite the landmark that local preservationists--or even the city of West Hollywood--said it was. The previously-endangered building had been "saved" from redevelopment decades earlier, but apparently everyone involved in the preservation campaign was so busy celebrating their victory that they failed to actually file the paperwork required to codify the matter in law.

Despite this lack of any official status, the city proudly claimed the Formosa as a treasured landmark. And so, it wasn't on anyone's radar as a place that needed to be watched carefully, lest foolish owners destroy the treasure in their care.