Saving The Past For The Future Restoration of San Diego’s historical dwellings interests Louise Torio

It’s a mix of the old and the new that makes a city vibrant,” says Sherman Heights resident Louise Torio about her passion for restoring San Diego’s historical structures.

Torio, 39, is perhaps most passionate about her neighborhood of six years where she is secretary of the Sherman Heights Citizen’s Patrol and the Sherman Heights Revitalization Team that has partnered with the city of San Diego. She and her husband are restoring two side-by-side historic Victorian homes in the area, one in which they live.
A volunteer and docent at the Villa Montezuma Museum for the San Diego Historical Society, Torio also works closely with the Save Our Heritage Organisation. SOHO is a nonprofit group that advises San Diego residents on issues of restoration, historical accuracy and tax-saving benefits of the Mills Act.

Torio also is responsible for the cages under State Route 94 that prevent transients and others from gathering under the freeway’s ramps. After her two-year battle with Caltrans to install the bars, the highway now serves as a statewide model for other California communities.

A former advertising and marketing executive in New York, Torio now works for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board. She uses her writing skills to involve the San Diego business community in the benefits of historic preservation. Torio received the Women’s Council of Realtors “Person of the Year” award for her community efforts.

Passionate about historical buildings, Louise Torio
(left) poses with (left to right) Denise Ducheny,
Byron Wear and Jan Hicks Manos at a
Balboa Theatre Foundation fund-raiser.