Filed under: Odds and ends, Steve Jobs
Last week, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Steve Jobs' request to demolish his house. The Jackling house is a large Spanish Colonial revival mansion built in 1926. A group of preservationists called "Uphold Our Heritage" want to prevent Jobs from tearing it down. They have established a website at friendsofthejacklinghouse.org.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Shunnabunich said 2:03PM on 4-30-2007
News at 6: Is Jonathan Ive about to delve into the world of architecture? :P
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Alex Micek said 2:04PM on 4-30-2007
I wonder how he ended up owning the house if he feels its such an architectural abomination. "Architectural abomination" sure is a catchy phrase, though!
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Brad Rokosz said 2:17PM on 4-30-2007
Alex: Location. Location. Location.
I find it interesting (historic landmark aside) that Steve is being told what he a can and cannot do to his property. Do Historic Societies require a certain amount of upkeep to the landmarks? Steve could just let it rot, then bulldoze it when it's uninhabitable.
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Wheels said 2:39PM on 4-30-2007
Thank God for life, liberty, and property...NOT!
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Cameron Campbell said 2:46PM on 4-30-2007
Brad, no they often don't. That's why people who can't get around Heritage rules do just that, let them rot.
Wheels, that's not actually in your constitution you know.
This is an issue that I feel torn about, on one hand it's his. On his land.
On the other hand I look at all the architecture of historical (albeit often regional) importance that has been torn down or messed with so it's barely recognizable and it saddens me.
(here is the bit where I build my mac cred, please bear with me, it's an attempt to keep the idiot fringe from attacking me, reasonable people can tune back in after the following paragraph)
I love Apple, love their computers, I currently own 6 or 7 in various states of functionality, my 3 year old son can identify a good computer (apple logo) from a bad one (everything else) at great distances, I think Steve is an amazing leader and visionary.
That said, what makes anyone think that in his personal life he isn't like any other rich, privileged CEO? He wants what he wants when he wants it. Anything that gets in his way will piss him off. He'll try to find ways around the rules that piss him off. This is why people from the corporate world aren't often a great match for public service.
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Steven Fisher said 3:13PM on 4-30-2007
I'm wondering who would possibly think a mansion built in 1926 is worth keeping as "heritage".
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xyz3 said 11:56PM on 4-30-2007
And now we know why the latest feature/bug in Apple hardware is potential fire starting...
Passerby: Steve ! Your house is on fire!
Steve: Sure looks that way. Have any marshmallows?
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Sparks said 3:07PM on 4-30-2007
In fairness, from what several other articles say, he bought the house aaaages ago when he thought he liked it, and lived in it with his family for ten years. After years, they got sick of all the design problems with it (hence the 'architectural abomination' comment), and moved out several years ago. Since then, the house has been uninhabited.
Apparently he misses the location, however, and as he still owns the land he wants to bulldoze the house and build something smaller with more modern building standards. He got the permit, and has offered to sell the house and have it moved to another site for preservation purposes, but the preservation group wants it right there on that same plot of land rather than relocated elsewhere.
So while, yes, he's still basically a rich CEO who wants his way, he at least seems to have not been completely unreasonable in how he's trying to go about it.
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Stephen said 7:24PM on 4-30-2007
@Steven Fisher: A lot of Californians. We're losing some much of our historic landmarks to modernization it's sickening. A lot of people are clinging to what is left.
I tend to side with the fact that life goes on and while it's sad that part of history has to go away, that's the way it works. For goodness sake, Steve was willing to sell the house to get it off of his property. It's better than getting rid of the house alltogether. It could probably be better preserved under someone else's supervision anyways -- The man did call it an architectural abomination!
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ap said 4:19PM on 4-30-2007
It's amazing what a group of idiots can do. ..And make it seem so right...Sad
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MxSix said 4:20PM on 4-30-2007
That website makes me laugh. They use a Strict DOCTYPE and then use tables.
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Jeff Alldridge said 8:38PM on 4-30-2007
This seems odd. I can understand preserving historical landmarks, but how much will the public be affected by the house there or not? Seems to me the only people affected by it are Steve and his family.
Of course, it's a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line. I can understand the argument of a historical landmark that is not public that needs to be preserved.
Tough call.
Though it sounds like he has been approaching this thing reasonably —attempting to sell the house to relocate, etc.
I wonder if Steve again yelled "Architectural abomination!" when referring to PCs architecture. Thus the re-architecture structure of the G5 and post G5 computers.
It's not that the house is horrible, the Jackling house's system controller and I/O controller are causing a bottleneck.
Steve's new proposed modern Xeon house's architecture features 1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses that maximize performance and deliver total processor bandwidth of up to 21.3GB/s. And bamboo floors throughout of course.
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Ulysses said 4:32PM on 4-30-2007
"Article on the preservationists' site say Jobs has offered to pay $150,000
for debris removal and $350,000 in moving expenses (wonder if he was being
generous, or if the court ordered him)."
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Andre said 4:33PM on 4-30-2007
Um, so why doesn't he just sell it and move to a house he actually likes?
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Galls said 4:50PM on 4-30-2007
Steve Jobs organ sucking force assssseeeeeemmmmmbbbbbblllllleeeeeee!
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sam said 4:37PM on 4-30-2007
Steve - I'll make you a deal.
My friends and I will come live in your house, free of charge. We will make such a mess of things and neglect the house so badly that the city will have no choice but to condemn it. We will play all sorts of sports inside it, including baseball and hockey. We will fill the living room with water and freeze it for ice skating. We will conduct explosives experiments in close quarters to walls and load-bearing columns and supports.
All free of charge, just because I like you.
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Justin said 4:42PM on 4-30-2007
Don't demolish it!
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sunshwr said 7:44PM on 4-30-2007
Steve would rather live in something lickable.
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Macintologist said 7:36PM on 4-30-2007
You guys have to remember that many people will benefit from Jobs building a new house, not just Jobs himself. One of the first things you learn in economics class is that luxury goods are highly elastic, which means that Jobs wants to build one, but if he was prevented from doing so, could do something else with his money.
People who's livelihoods depend on building fancy houses, on the other hand, are providing a highly inelastic product. They can't just pack up and do another job, it takes a lot of training and money to do something different.
While Jobs and the courts fight over this house, the true losers are the many workers who were going to be employed to build Steve's multi-million dollar wonder house.
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Jeffrey Bergier said 9:50PM on 4-30-2007
This is sickening. The idea that random people can tell a landowern what he can and cannot do with his land that be bought is so unamerican. If these people want to preserve this land, they can offer to purchase it. But in the end, it is his to do with as he wants. As long as what he is doing is not detrimental to other people's land and the air around it he should be free to do what he wants.
Are there any car guys out there? Just imagine if a random group of people said that you had to keep your 1938 Buick in original condition. then they requre that you build an air-conditioned garage to store it in.
It is pure madness.
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