Alma Fairfax Carlisle ( née Murray, born July 9, 1927), is an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

architectural historian An architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it. Professional requirements As many architectural historians are employed at universities and other facilities ...

who worked in

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. Her work led to the preservation of many historic districts and sites in the city of Los Angeles.

Biography

Carlisle was born on July 9, 1927, in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

, where she was also raised. In high school, she began to become interested in architecture and architectural history, and family members, including her father, who were involved in

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

nurtured her interests. In 1950, Carlisle graduated '' cum laude'' from

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

with an architecture degree. Carlisle married David Kay Carlisle on July 28, 1953, and they had three children together. During the 1950s and 1960s, Carlisle was a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...

. In 1975, she and her family moved to Los Angeles where Carlisle began working for the City of Los Angeles. While Carlisle was an architectural associate for the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering she helped investigate and provide evidence for preserving historic structures in Los Angeles. Her historic resources surveys, conducted in 27 neighborhoods in the city led to the "designation of four Historic Preservation Overlay Zones and more than 50 Historic-Cultural Monuments. Of the surveys, the ones in which she was most significantly involved with were Melrose Hill (1984) and Whitley Heights (1990). In 1996, she retired from the city, but in 2001, she joined an architectural firm in Los Angeles, Myra L. Frank & Associates.

Biography

See also

References

Further reading