The Preservation Foundation

Preservation Foundation President John Mashek, Tatiana Platt, and Preservation Foundation Executive Director John Ripley

At the annual meeting of its board of trustees on January 9, 2008, the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach presented the 2008 Polly Earl Award to Campion and Tatiana Platt, who are restoring a house on Seaspray Avenue.  Mr. Platt was unfortunately unable to attend and Mrs. Platt received the award alone in his absence.

Named in honor of the work done by the late Polly Earl as the Executive Director of the Preservation Foundation, The Polly Earl Award was established to honor individuals, presumably property owners, who have done outstanding service within the last year or so furthering the goals of the Preservation Foundation, specifically through restoration of a property of historic significance that is not necessarily a large estate.  In addition to the bronze medal, the award carries with it a gift of $10,000.

The 2008 Polly Earl Award-winning house, post-restoration

Noted Palm Beach architect Gustav Maas designed the residence.  Of interest as one of Maas’s earliest Palm Beach works, the house was built in 1924 before Maas’s well-known association with famed architect John L. Volk in the late 20’s and early 30’s.  The residence serves as an excellent example of the Colonial Revival architectural style which is so closely associated with Palm Beach.  Its relationship to the ‘boom times’ construction of the 1920’s also lends it particular cultural and historical significance. 

The Platts’ restoration offers a model for preservation in Palm Beach.  Not only was the undertaking a sensitive and exhaustive restoration with special care given to greenspace and ground settled underneath the property, but use was made of the property-tax abatement program offered by the town of Palm Beach for restorations.  The Preservation Foundation hopes this restoration will encourage more property owners would take advantage of the program.

The 2008 Polly Earl Award-winning house, pre-restoration circa 1995

The Platts purchased the residence in 2006.  The restoration itself took 15 months to complete.  Campion Platt, an internationally recognized architect listed as one of the Top 100 Architects and Designers in the world by Architectural Digest several times over, personally oversaw the restoration with his wife Tatiana. He is a graduate of Columbia University School of Architecture and his work includes Instinet’s Times Square World Headquarters, the Time Warner showhouse in New York, the Esquire 360 showhouse in Los Angeles, and the Bulfinch Hotel in Boston. Mrs. Platt is a former senior executive at America Online and was one of the longest tenured executives there.  She is actively involved in several charities, having founded the Tatiana Simone Foundation in 1999.  In the summer of 2007 she started FameGame.com, a social networking website.