Jimmy Biddle & Paul Bridgewater

James Biddle, a leader in preserving America's homes and landscapes of historic value, including Andalusia, his family's 19th-century estate near Philadelphia, died at home on March 10, 2005. He was 75. (P: John Orris/The New York Times. James Biddle, shown in 1967)

As president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. Biddle, known as Jimmy, defended architectural landmarks like Grand Central Terminal and the original exterior of the United States Capitol.

Years earlier, he was instrumental in raising the money to save Olana, the Moorish manor perched above the Hudson River that was built by the artist Frederic Edwin Church.

"We Americans must decide if we want to preserve what we have or if we just want to pave it over, high-rise it and factory it," he wrote in Travel Leisure magazine in 1972.

In his 12 years at the National Trust, the organization reached beyond the East Coast to designate historic sites as far away as California, and it began awarding grants and loans to support neighborhood preservation projects. When he left in 1980, the trust's membership had grown to 150,000, from 13,000.

Mr. Biddle was previously a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There he expanded the American Wing's collection to include pieces from not only Colonial era but also from the 19th century on, acquiring elaborately carved furniture by John Henry Belter.


The Andalusia — also known as the Nicholas Biddle Estate. 1790s Greek Revival style house located in Bensalem Township, Bucks County, eastern Pennsylvania. A Historic American Buildings Survey—HABS image by Jack Boucher (1976).
James Biddle was a leader in preserving America's homes and landscapes of historic value, including Andalusia, his family's 19th-century estate near Philadelphia. At once Jimmy had a black 'friend', a 'boy' when he came to Andalusia long ago to clean the pool, and met Jimmy, now a popular dinner guest, attentive host and retired dentist. "He simply knocked me out, I could hardly help myself" Jimmy said to Michael Henry Adams, as he listened in disbelief. He is survived by devoted friend Paul Bridgewater.

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Source: www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/national/11biddle.html (By JENNIFER BAYOT, Published: March 11, 2005)

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