[Photo Credit: Thalia Lubin for The Chronicle]
Last week was one of highs and lows for Steve Jobs. The man from Apple introduced a new "device" at MacWorld in San Francisco, which was the only thing interesting to everyone at the Consumer Electronics Show, which happened to be in Las Vegas. He got sued by Cisco over the name "iPhone" and someone keeps bring up some pesky stock option problems. And then he was ordered not demolish his historic but ramshackle mansion in Woodside to build a smaller house.
The house in question was designed for copper millionaire Daniel Jackling by George Washington Smith, the man credited with bringing an eclectic Hispano-Mediterannean style to Pasadena and then Santa Barbara, where his over-the-top villas, many looking like so many small Andalucian villages, still dominate the landscape. Jobs hasn't lived in the house for ten years, hasn't done any maintenance, and now claims it's no longer worth saving. True, it's not small, white and shiny, but it's an outstanding example of historicist composition and massing, and since it's never been renovated, all the more valuable.
Fighting the good fight, or at least the white stucco front, has been a coalition of Woodside residents and architects. And would someone please tell Mr. Jobs about the Mills Act?
· Appeals court says Jobs can't raze Woodside mansion [SF Gate]
· Friends of the Jackling House [Uphold Our Heritage]
· Mills Act Property Tax Abatement [Office of Historic Preservation]