The Stanford Historical Society’s Historic Houses Committee received the 2007 Governor’s Historic Preservation Award earlier this month for its efforts to preserve old homes in the community.

The award — the state’s only official honor for historic preservation — “recognizes the efforts of the Stanford Historical Society’s Historic Houses Project to interpret, and gain recognition for, historic faculty housing on the Stanford University campus,” according to Historic Houses Project co-Chair Marian Leib Adams.

In an email to The Daily, Adams described the actions taken by the group to preserve 150 historic homes in the area.

“Through a series of book-length publications, and house tours, the society has documented and celebrated houses in the San Juan subdivision,” she said.

The San Juan subdivision is an old part of campus, where the historic homes are mixed in with old Row houses. Several notable early 20th century architects, including A.B. Clark, Bakewell & Brown, Birge Clark and Charles Sumner, designed the homes.

According to Adams, preserving the homes is necessary to fulfill the wishes of University founders Leland and Jane Stanford.

“One of Governor and Mrs. Stanford’s founding visions was that Stanford be a residential community for faculty as well as students,” she said. “Our research focuses on the architectural evolution of the oldest campus houses (which date back to the late 19th century) and the histories of their owners and their place in the founding and early years of the University.”

Currently, the group, which has focused its preservation efforts on houses built between 1892 — the year after the University opened — and 1930, is compiling a series of books about the houses.

“We are working on the fifth book in the series and probably have at least two more to write before we have covered all the houses built before World War II,” Adams said.

The third and fourth volumes of the published books are available for purchase at the Stanford Bookstore and at the Cantor Arts Center gift shop, and all of the books can be purchased on the Historical Society’s Web site at http://histsoc.stanford.edu/hhouses.shtml.

The group held a house tour in April 2007, just before National Preservation Month in May. The tour, which showcased six of the houses and grounds, attracted more than 400 walkers.

Adams is convinced of the importance of the work the committee is doing.

“The houses tell wonderful stories, represent a key value of the founders and are a vital part of Stanford history,” she said.