“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs Wednesday lost a bid to a state appeals court in San Francisco for a permit to demolish an historic 30-room house in Woodside and replace it with a smaller residence,” Bay City News (BCN) reports.
“The Court of Appeal upheld a ruling in which San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner last year set aside a permit granted by the Woodside Town Council for demolition of the building, known as the Jackling House,” BCN reports.
BCN reports, “The two-story, 17,250-square-foot house was built for copper magnate Daniel Jackling in 1926. It was designed by George Washington Smith, a leading architect in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, and qualifies as an historical resource under the California Environmental Quality Act, the court said.”
“Jobs bought the building in 1984, lived in it for about 10 years and then rented it for several years after moving to Palo Alto. It has been vacant since 2000 and has been allowed to deteriorate, according to the court ruling,” BCN reports. “Jobs began seeking a permit to demolish it and build a smaller 6,000-square-foot home for himself and his family in 2001. He was granted the permit in 2004 by a 4-3 vote of the Town Council, against the recommendation of the council’s staff. Then a conservation group called Uphold Our Heritage filed a lawsuit challenging the action.”
“In Wednesday’s ruling, a three-judge appeals panel agreed with Weiner’s finding… Jobs’s lawyer, Howard Ellman, said he could not comment on Jobs’s plans or on a possible further appeal because he has not been able to reach Jobs, who is at Apple’s Macworld trade show in San Francisco Wednesday,” BCN reports. “Ellman said ‘discussions are in progress’ for a private group to take over the house and move it to a different site.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Steve Jobs patiently waits to tear down his 30-room Jackling House ‘abomination’ – February 27, 2006
Judge stops Apple, Pixar CEO Steve Jobs from demolishing historical house – January 04, 2006
Apple CEO Steve Jobs offers ‘dump’ of a house free to anyone who’ll take it away – January 03, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs gets green light to tear down his ‘dump’ of a house – December 15, 2004
Preservationists battle Apple CEO Steve Jobs over his ‘dump’ of a house – October 17, 2004
We should all have such problems…
Hey, Steve…what if it were to accidentally catch fire?
You don’t know the history of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, the Woodside Town Council does.
You don’t know the history of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, the Woodside Town Council does.
You don’t know the history of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, the Woodside Town Council does.
I love my Mac, and have long admired Apple and Steve Jobs, but I side with the preservationists on this topic…
I’ve seen the photos of the Jackling house in it’s heyday, and it was quite beautiful. Sure, from the current day photos (the house has been vacant and mostly ignored and deteriorating for the past 6 or so years), it doesn’t look so good, but it’s hardly an abomination. A little spit and polish and it would be back in no time….
Seriously, if Jobs didn’t like Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, which is a as much an example of Californian architecture as anything, then why did he live in it for 10 years? Okay, fine, so he wants to build a new house there. I don’t see a problem with that, but the house is unquestionably of historic value, so why doesn’t he just pay to have the house relocated, to say Golden Gate Park perhaps? It might cost a few million to do so, but that’s a drop in the bucket for a guy with $7 billion.
I’m siding partially with Jobs on this. If he can’t do what he wants with his property, is it really his property? So, he is forced to keep it like it is? Is anyone going to want to buy the property from him if they can’t do what they want with it?
If the council wants it to be a historic site, then they should buy it from him and make it a park.
I agree with Save it…
If it were not built by historical characters or in an historical style… but it is both. I love Steve, but this is probably the right decision.
I’m sure Steve could find another location to build his new house if he has to. Why is he so set on that property location that he’s perhaps willing to relocate the mansion even just to build there? Must be the right neighborhood.
A little flexibility in life can lead to unexpected positive outcomes. I’m sure Steve will figure it out.
Why the heck did Jobs buy the place to begin with? It it’s too large now, it must have been too large then. Besides, the rage to preserve historical buildings is endemic among the hoity-toity and has dimished property right of owners for years. I’m surprised that Steve wasn’t allowed to build a smaller home in the same Spainish Colonial style. Chalk one up for leftwing traditionalists.
Lame that a building that’s like 75 years old is considered to have “historic value” in this country. There are millions of people older than that house for crying out loud.
@jeff
I’m siding partially with Jobs on this. If he can’t do what he wants with his property, is it really his property? So, he is forced to keep it like it is? Is anyone going to want to buy the property from him if they can’t do what they want with it?
Kinda like the Taliban blowing up a massive ancient Buddhist statue ( which predates Islam by a thousand years or so) but hell they found it “unsightly” so it had to go.
It’s his property and he should be able to raze it.
Now we’re learning how bad San Francisco is getting – a men’s choir visiting from Yale was savagely beaten by some young thugs, and the police are refusing to arrest those criminals because one of them is the son of a politically-connected local doctor. The corrupt mayor Gavin Newsome and police chief Fong are siding with the punks who stalked the choir members, kicking and beating them until one suffered a broken jaw.
As a Mac software developer, I’ve attended MacWorld Expos in the past and had a great time. But the city is going to hell, and I’m scratching San Francisco off of my list for future visits.
Steve Jobs should just pack up and leave California – and take Apple with him.
Certainly none of my business.
Yea, my smaller house is only 6,000-square-feet as well. A little small, but you get use to it.
“I love my Mac, and have long admired Apple and Steve Jobs, but I side with the preservationists on this topic… “
Then you’re an idiot. It is HIS property! Who are they to tell him what he can do with it?
This is another classic case of the government overstepping its authority.
the whole country is shit…
move to canada
Tom Cruise… You’re funny dude. You’ve been missed.
BURN IT!!!!!!! Who gives a shit if some house is toasted. HE owns it. Some liberal idiots can tell you what to do with your property just so they can all “feel good”. He stated he was going to rebuild with the same “Theme ” Just another case of showing “Stupid Liberalism”.
“He was granted the permit in 2004 by a 4-3 vote of the Town Council, against the recommendation of the council’s staff.”
would they have voted this way if was an average person in a middle class neighborhood? in my hometown, minor alterations in historic areas are frequently denied; and these houses are valued at less than 150K.
its nice to see a spoiled billionaire have to abide by the same rules as the rest of us; it doesn’t happen very often.
Good. Not even His Steveness should be above protecting cultural heritage.
Save the house.
If you wanna see what happens when you tear everything down; check out Tampere, Finland.
There’s pretty much nothing old left. Caterpillar was the name of the game for way too long.
And what is that houses carbon footprint? What would the new one be?
Let him raze it.
The same leftist gangsters who argue for denying Jobs the right to demolish HIS bought and payed for home would likely favor the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, which also says the state can steal your property.
TC? Where you been.
Steve, make it look as if some kids had a fire going in there and throw around a lot of CHEAP beer cans, and let that little fire do it’s thang.
Unreal he can be told what to do with his property.
geeze. the thing isn’t even a hundred years old. crush it! I think they have a lot of brass giving him a hard time on this- a building that can only be seen from the air.
He should rent it out to sharecroppers for a dollar a year. See ho they like that.