Historic house's future still uncertain Historic house's future still uncertain (June 09, 2004)

** Jackling house owner Steve Jobs calls it 'a dump,' wants it demolished.

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and never was this more clear than at the Woodside Planning Commission last week, where Steve Jobs tried to convince commissioners that the historic Jackling house was in fact an oversized eyesore that the town would be well rid of.

Mr. Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple and Pixar, is seeking permission to demolish the 17,000-square-foot house built for copper baron Daniel Jackling in 1926.

The Spanish colonial revival-style house on Mountain Home Road, designed by noted architect George Washington Smith, has been called one of the outstanding historically significant properties in Woodside by architectural historian Michael Corbett, and the plan to demolish it has drawn protests from the estate's former owners and guests, the Woodside History Committee and the San Francisco office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

While one man's trash heap may be another man's architectural treasure, starkly contrasting pictures of more than just the Jackling house's aesthetics were drawn at the meeting.

"I bought the property 20 years ago this year," Mr. Jobs told the Planning Commission at its June 2 meeting. "It was pretty much a dump then. It's extremely poorly built and falling apart."

The house has been vacant for the past four or five years, and vandals have further damaged the house, said Mr. Jobs, who lives in Palo Alto.

But according to Mr. Corbett's assessment, the house is solidly built, with numerous copper features, and is still structurally sound in spite of being left open to the elements via missing doors and windows. Photos of the house from the time of its sale to Mr. Jobs and testimony from former owners show the house was in pretty good shape, and the building methods were "ahead of their time," according to Thalia Lubin, chair of the history committee.

"It's more than just vandalism, it's willful neglect -- things were torn off. It's sad that anybody who owns a place would let that happen," said Ms. Lubin.

In order to get the demolition permit, the Jackling house's historic and architectural merits, along with alternatives to tearing it down and possible measures to lessen the impact of its loss, had to be evaluated in a "focused" environmental impact report. The report contains a lengthy and detailed analysis of the house's historic significance by Mr. Corbett, as well as a peer review by another architectural historian and a rebuttal from an architectural historian retained by Mr. Jobs.

The town's Planning Commission has the task of sifting through all the information and deciding whether to certify the EIR -- that is, determine whether, under standards set by state law, it is sufficiently informative and responds to comments and questions raised when it was circulated in its draft form earlier this year.

Commissioners voted 5-0, with Sara Jorgenson and Steve Patrick absent, to certify the EIR but the crux of the decision -- should Mr. Jobs be allowed to demolish the house, and if so, how to mitigate its loss? -- was postponed to the June 16 meeting.

Commission members took issue with the fact that no mention of plans for a new house were submitted as part of the demolition application. Mr. Jobs said at the meeting he wants to build a house there for his family to live in. In order to weigh feasible alternatives to the demolition, commissioners said they need to understand Mr. Jobs' ultimate goal for the site.

"Why design a new house before you take down the old one?" said Howard Ellman, the attorney representing Mr. Jobs. "You can't design it or even come up with a concept before you take the old one down."

Ms. Lubin, who is a practicing architect, offered Mr. Jobs the use of a software program that would generate 3-D views of the site without the existing house.

"I know you're into computers. I have a little computer in my office that can visualize the land without the house," she offered. "I can show you."

Mr. Jobs responded with a thin-lipped smile and shook his head.

Other people who commented at the meeting included four Woodside residents who said they support Mr. Jobs and thought it was unfair of the town to subject him to the EIR process.

This was a theme championed by Mr. Jobs' attorney. Despite complaints by Mr. Ellman that the decision to do an EIR was arbitrary and unnecessary, Planning Commission members seemed satisfied with the response from Susan Brant-Hawley, the expert attorney hired by the town. She said the environmental report was clearly required by the California Environmental Quality Act and town staff had no choice but to comply.

"I don't think this is about a historic treasure; I think some of my neighbors don't want a construction project," Mr. Jobs said.

He said he doesn't think the town has a legal basis for preventing the demolition. "I think all this is nuts," Mr. Jobs said.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.