Town approves Steve Jobs' mansion tear-down plan
Steve Jobs' 25-year real estate nightmare is almost over.
On Tuesday night, the city council of Woodside, Calif., approved Jobs' plan to dismantle a 14-bedroom Spanish colonial mansion he bought in 1984 but never really liked. He's been trying since 2004 to raze the house and replace it with a smaller home more to his exacting taste.
The latest plan, which was approved in a 6-1 vote, is a three-way deal. Jobs would spend $604,800 to deconstruct the house. A wealthy Silicon Valley investor — Gordon Smythe, founder of Propel Partners — would take possession of the pieces and have five years to find a suitable property on which to reconstruct them. The town of Woodside and the county museum would have first dibs on anything Smythe doesn't use. More
Steve Jobs wins approval to raze his old mansion
Unless preservationists make a last-ditch effort to save it, a 14-bedroom house built by a copper millionaire during the Coolidge administration will be torn down by a computer billionaire in the age of Obama.
At a public hearing Tuesday night, the town council of Woodside, Calif. — one of the wealthiest small towns in America — voted 6 to 1 to approve a controversial demolition permit that would allow Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs to knock down a 17,250 square foot Spanish colonial mansion and replace it with a smaller, more environmentally friendly home.
"I love old Spanish revival homes — I have a couple of them myself, and I've restored them," council member Dave Tanner said at the meeting, according to a report in the Palo Alto Daily News. "I didn't see any reason to try to restore or maintain this house."
Jobs bought the sprawling mansion known as the Jackling House in 1984 — the year the Mac came out — and camped out in it for about 10 years before moving to Palo Alto. His 2004 demolition permit was approved by the Woodside town council but blocked by an ad-hoc group called Uphold Our Heritage. They view the abandoned structure — built in 1925 by George Washington Smith in his Santa Barbara style for copper mining magnate Daniel C. Jackling — as a national treasure.
At Tuesday's meeting, Mayor Peter Mason, a licensed architect, cast the sole vote opposing demolition. "It's an unfortunate thing that Mr. Jobs doesn't like the house," Mason told the Daily News. "It's really sad that we're going to continue to tear down historic resources in this town because they're old."
Asked by the paper whether she planned to pursue further legal action, Uphold Our Heritage president Clotilda Luce gave an ambiguous answer. "We already sued, and we won," she said. "I wish (the council) had paid attention to the law."
Photo by Jonathan Haeber posted with permission. For more of his work, click here and here.
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Lawyer: Steve Jobs too weak to attend long town meeting
The Woodside, Calif., town council met Tuesday night to hear Steve Jobs explain why he should be permitted to demolish a 30-room mansion he bought in 1984 — but Apple's (AAPL) CEO didn't show up.
"I don't think he would be strong enough if we were here until 1 a.m., and I think there's a strong possibility of that," the lawyer representing Jobs told the council, according to the Palo Alto Daily News.
Jobs, who has been struggling with health issues following surgery for pancreatic cancer, is two-thirds of the way through a six-month medical leave and is said to be working on company business from home. Although Apple's official line — repeated at last week's quarterly earnings call — is that it looks forward to his return at the end of June, Jobs seems to be husbanding his strength.
Photo: Jonathan Haeber
As it turns out, his lawyer — Howard Ellman — was right that the meeting might run late. The session that started at 7:30 p.m. was still going strong three hours later, when the Daily News reporter filed his story.
Local residents were defending Jobs' right to tear down a building he doesn't like and replace it with a new house more to his taste.
Preservationists who had traveled from as far away as Florida and Virginia argued that Jobs hadn't tried hard enough find someone willing to restore or relocate the 84-year-old Santa Barbara-style Spanish colonial that they describe as an architectural treasure.
The meeting finally broke up shortly before midnight, according to Susan George, the Woodside town manager. The council will reconvene in two weeks — on May 12 — at which time it hopes to issue a tentative decision on whether to approve demolition.
"To me it didn't sound good," says Thalia Lubin, a local architect who hoped to see the building preserved.
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Architectural photo posted courtesy of Jonathan Haeber
Inside Steve Jobs' tear-down mansion
Photo © Scott Haefner
On Tuesday a California city council will reconsider Steve Jobs' longstanding request for permission to tear down the empty 84-year-old mansion that stands on the site where he wants to build a smaller, modern house more to his exacting taste.
The 17,250-square-foot Spanish colonial, located in Woodside, Calif., one of the wealthiest small towns in America, was designed by George Washington Smith for Daniel C. Jackling, self-made millionaire (copper) and San Francisco society-page headliner who filled his home with expensive artwork and traveled the world by private railroad car and custom-built yacht.
Apple's (AAPL) CEO bought the 30-room hacienda in 1984, the year the Mac was released, and camped out there for the better part of a decade before moving to Palo Alto.
He found the sprawling mansion a cold and dreary place to live. He has called it "one of the biggest abominations of a house I've ever seen" and says it will cost more to restore than to replace. At one point he offered to give it to anyone willing to pay to have it moved.
Copper mailbox © Scott Haefner
Preservationists, led by Uphold Our Heritage's Friends of the Jackling House, blocked Jobs' first petition in a legal battle that went all the way to the California Supreme Court. They call the Santa Barbara-style manse an architectural treasure worthy of National Register nomination and bemoan the damage it has suffered in the 10 years it has stood — unoccupied and neglected — at the center of its 6-acre grounds.
"Rain drips through the roofs on to the Aeolian Pipe organ," wrote photographer Jonathan Haeber in 2008. "A classic pool table sits in a room with the pool balls still in the racks. The faint scent of skunk permeates the interior."
Below the fold: some rare glimpses inside the house that Jobs hates, in its current state of disrepair.
