Demolition has, at long last, begun on the 17,250 square-foot mansion in Woodside, CA owned by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs has been battling local preservationists on the project for years, but won permission to demolish the home in March of 2010. The San Jose Mercury News reported that crews had begun the works Monday (yesterday).
The house was designed and built for copper mining magnate Daniel Jackling (hence its name, the Jackling House) in 1925 by architect George Washington Smith. The home was built in Spanish Colonial Revival style, and was considered a local landmark by some in the community.
Mr. Jobs purchased the property in 1984, where he lived for some ten years. He then rented it out for several years, but it remained vacant starting in 2001 when the iconic tech legend decided to tear down the home and build a new, smaller house. That’s when the battle with preservationists begun.
Starting with that decision in 2001, there was a series of back and forth battles that included Mr. Jobs winning the backing of the Woodside town council to destroy the home, followed by court victories by Uphold Our Heritage that effectively required Mr. Jobs to renovate and preserve the existing structure.
In March of 2010, a San Mateo court ruled that Mr. Jobs had successfully proved that it would cost many millions of dollars more to renovate than to tear down and rebuild, clearing the way for the project to continue. At one point, an investor named Gordon Smythe had agreed to dismantle and move the house to another location, but that plan appears to have fallen by the wayside in Woodside as the demolition began on Monday.