
Hershel Shepard to receive the de Aviles Award
The de Avilés Award
is presented only by the city commission and only once a year. For
2012, that presentation will be on Monday, March 26 when the commission
recognizes Hershel Shepard as the 30th recipient of the prestigious de Avilés Award.
The presentation will take place early in the
commission’s regularly scheduled meeting starting at 5:00pm in The
Alcazar Room, 75 King Street. The meeting is open to the public.
A renowned architect, Shepard has devoted much of
his career working in Florida and much of it in Northeast Florida,
including St. Augustine. Specializing in historic preservation,
Herschel’s credits include the restoration of the Historic 1902 Florida
State Capitol in Tallahassee and the Florida Theater restoration in
Jacksonville and dozens of other properties in communities throughout
the state. His nationally recognized expertise in historic preservation
has served many Florida communities during his career, and certainly
none more so than St. Augustine.
The de Avilés Award was initiated by the
commission in 1988 and since 2002 has limited recipients to one per
year. The guidelines specify only that the recipients be those who are,
“...identified in the field of public service or those well-known and
respected by the citizenry who have dedicated and honorable service to
the community of St. Augustine and St. Johns County.”
Shepard’s work in St. Augustine has contributed to
the preservation of many of the city’s most prominent structures,
including the Acosta House, the Joaneda House, the O'Reilly House, the
Tovar House, Avero House at St. Photios Shrine, the de-Mesa Sanchez
House, the Gonzalez-Alvarez ("Oldest") House, Ximenez-Fatio House, the
Castillo de San Marcos, Government House and the Alcazar Hotel (City
Hall/Lightner Museum).

After two decades of his first
career as an architect in his native Jacksonville , Shepard started a
second career as a professor of architecture at the University of
Florida where he held the Bienecke-Reeves Distinguished Chair in
Architectural Preservation. The recipient of many awards for his work,
Herschel is an advisor emeritus of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation and a founder and director of the Florida Trust for
Historic Preservation.
For more information on the de Aviles Award and the city’s other honorary award, The Order of La Florida, including rosters of recipients of each award, click here.
For more information about the presentation, contact the Public Affairs office at 904.825.1004 or at info@citystaug.com.