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Letter: Time for Steve Jobs, Jackling House, to move on

Good news at last for Mr. (Steve) Jobs. His private property rights have recently been restored.

He will be "allowed" to dismantle or tear down an aging moldy Woodside house in which he has had no interest or desire to repair. After 27 years of owning the property he may finally be able to own it for a while.

The small society which has prevented him from carrying out his own plans on this land might have, instead, tried saving the historic water towers that were once part of the landscape of Woodside. Is there one left someplace behind the oak trees?

The Jackling property was once large and beautiful, with a big swimming pool, stables and other living quarters. That was then. This is now, and a different world it is! The Jackling pool was emptied and torn out, and new property lines drawn through it. The stables have long been separated from the main house. When the era of that heady time ended, so did the life in the big house and all of its once-fine buildings.

Next Mr. Jobs will have to face the Planning Commission and the Town Council, and finally obtain permits for everything he will plan. With blueprints and elevations and storey poles and heights of ceiling, depths of any building below the surface, window designs, lighting fixtures — on and on. We pray that these maneuvers will not take as long as his first endeavor to replace one home for another. Twenty-seven years!

Trish Hooper

Portola Road, Portola Valley

Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Mar 28, 2010 at 8:47 pm

We pray that these maneuvers will not take as long as his first endeavor to replace one home for another. Twenty-seven years!

It's Woodside. Count on it! Good luck to Mr. Jobs getting anything built before he dies. Woodside has to be the worst municipality in the bay area to deal with on building issues.