Mission Statement
The Mission of Atomic Colony is to preserve a golden era of history and architecture, the Mid Century Modern era and provide unique architectural properties for unique people to live. Atomic Colony will take an active hands-on approach to restoring homes and other buildings to their original glamorous Modern appeal.
To facilitate this mission, Atomic Colony will find gems in the rough, i.e. Mid Century Modern properties that had not been too badly remodeled (‘remuddled’) or ‘home depot-ized’ (homes where improper modifications such as oak and glass doors, grid windows, Mediterranean fixtures, etc.) and bring these buildings back to their original aesthetic appeal.
Mary-Margaret worked on behalf of historic Mid Century Modern era architecture preservation for twenty years. She was an active volunteer in the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, Palms Springs ModCom and Las Vegas Atomic Age Alliance. She quickly became an expert in historic property restoration. And Mary-Margaret wrote two seminal architectural guides, How Modern Was My Valley and Mondo Vegas.
In 2003, she began a grass roots campaign to Save the La Concha Motel on the Las Vegas Strip from demolition. Her vision of preservation caught on. Key individuals alerted the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Preserve Nevada and the Recent Past Preservation Network to put this building on their Most Endangered Lists. Eventually the La Concha Dome was saved and relocated as the Neon Museum visitor center. When Mary-Margaret relocated to Vegas, her vision of preservation continued when she founded the Atomic Age Alliance and initiated the Modern historic preservation movement in Las Vegas!
With Roger Cook of Ask This Old House on PBS
Mary-Margaret has consistently applied her knowledge of historic structural rehabilitation for over a decade and successfully restored a dozen properties from the 1950s and 1960s. Her activities have been featured in Sunset Magazine, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal as well as numerous other magazines, television shows, movies, print ads and TV commercials. She was featured on PBS, Ask this Old House.
Mary-Margaret takes an active hands-on approach to restoring properties to their original appeal. It was her vision to provide unique special properties to attract high-quality long term leases and see enthusiasm for historic styled homes and neighborhoods.
Read more on m&m’s historic preservation history here: http://atomiccolony.com/about/history/