Leopold Adler

Leopold Adler II (April 18, 1923 – January 29, 2012) was an American historic preservationist based in Savannah, Georgia. President of the Historic Savannah Foundation, he was instrumental in the preservation movement in that city.

He appeared in John Berendt's best-selling 1994 book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Life and career Adler was born in 1923 in Savannah, Georgia, to Samuel Guckenheim Adler Sr. and Elinor Grunsfeld. His grandfather, after whom he was named, was Austrian native Leopold I. He established Adler's department store, on Broughton Street, in 1878. It burned down in 1958. Later that year, Adler enlisted in the United States Navy Air Corps. on September 12, 1953, with whom he had two children: John Morel and Leopold III. He wrote a handbook on preservation in 1974. with the 300 members of the Foundation agreeing to share the cost. Additionally, he shared his knowledge, got involved in issues, and directed multiple preservation efforts through the Savannah Landmark Rehabilitation Project, his non-profit service to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Adler's father died in 1979, and his mother later remarried, to William Elber Dillard, whom she also survived. Dillard died in 1991, aged 92, and Elinor followed less than a year later, although she was buried beside her first husband in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery.

In 1989, U.S. president George H. W. Bush presented Adler with the National Medal of Arts for "civic leadership in preserving for all time the beauty of Savannah." part of the Charles Rogers Duplex, located across West Wayne Street from the Mercer House home of Williams, on the western side of Monterey Square. (Adler's name was changed to Lorne Atwell in the Clint Eastwood-directed 1997 screenplay.) Adler once refused to shake Berendt's hand in front of a reporter. According to Berendt, Adler later apologized.

The Adlers won the John Macpherson Berrien Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Georgia Historical Society in 2003.

After his death, the Historic Savannah Foundation established the Lee and Emma Adler Preservation Advocacy Award.