Deal between Jobs and investor would pave way for dream house - Page 3

And I'm none of the above.

Not sure when that pic of the house was taken but someone has kept up the yard

Oh, man, this perfectly describes most of the users on most of the online forums I participate in. There's something about this format that lets people discard all courtesy and modesty and just rant. It's great to see someone being taken to task about it. Thanks, tt!

I have read quite a few of your posts here, and they seem mostly negative. I can understand that you might not like something Apple has done, I don't like everything Apple has made or done either, and have posted some criticisms here, too. But, you seem to be particularly vocal about your displeasure in most things Apple. As this is an Apple fan site, it seems a bit strange that you'd constantly criticize everything they make or do and expect a warm response.

Anyway, I don't mean to pile on, you have your opinion and I have mine, and we can all get along as long as we remain civil.

Back to the topic...

If Jobs owns the property this house is on, he has a right to rip it down and put a new one up if he wants. I think people are making much ado about nothing, it's just a house, eventually it will turn to dust anyway. Let the visionary man build his dream home and live his final years in peace, he deserves it.

I am surprised Steve Jobs wasted time fighting in courts over something like this. He could have dumped the property and found some nice property just as good in his area and built what he wanted... especially with the money that he has. Life is just too short to waste in Pyrrhic victories.

ten thousand arsonists in California and this PoS is still standing...

I have a great plan:

I think the restorationists should be given temporary custody of the home and a year to restore it. They would have to pay all upfront costs for the repairs and restoration, not do it on credit.

If at the end of the period they haven't done it, Jobs gets to demolish it. If the restoration is complete, he pays 80% of their incurred expenses, and they must buy the house from him for fair market value.

It's a win-win. Put up or shut up.

BTW, it's ridiculous that people who won't either invest money or their labor should be telling others what to do with their property.

Two Ms short of being auto-insulted by wilco.

No truth to this. Wishful thinking perhaps, but not truth.

May not be the truth in terms of current laws, but these laws are nonsense and are just another example of government interference in private affairs.

That house could sit there another 100 years and it will have no impact in any aspect of anyone's life. Document the hell out if it, take a million pictures, a 100 hours of video, and make it the subject of a course in architectural school if it's so important and see if it drives or inspires contemporaneous version of it.

I am sick of government intervention into personal matters. If the states wants to dictate something historic, they should buy it for full market value plus any costs inconvenience to the current property owner for relocation to a similarly value property. Let the state pay for it, which, of course is really the taxpayers, which of course, would quickly be met with outrage. Thus, they instead burden the individual with maintaining something they don't wish to with no recourse or financial.

Nothing lasts forever, this building has no historical significance other than in the self-serving minds of these preservation groups, and in the grand scheme of the world is meaningless! Property owners have the right to live in a home that serves their needs in a contemporaneous structure, not a museum. Yes, general local ordinances are generally reasonable - footprint of house as a percentage of property, height, setbacks for privacy, etc. If this house blew up tonight, no one would notice or care in year, if not a few weeks, other than a rarified group of radical preservationist who are severely deluded that these are important issues.

In the words of the great man, "whatever."

My sense is that we need to take the good Dr. Millmoss to task for talking about this as if it involves legalities. So far as I can see, this house is not deemed by the state of California to be a historic property. If it were, there would be no question about this issue at all. However, that does not appear to be the case here. Linking long PDF documents that detail the many interesting elements of the house and its history doesn't establish a 'fact' that it is a protected structure, despite all statements to the contrary. I skimmed the PDF in question, and so far as I can tell, it sums up to a recommendation from one evaluator that the house 'should' be eligible for a protected status. Oddly enough, however, despite the fact that the house supposedly 'should' be eligible for a protected status, it does not have one.

What has happened in this case is that a group of concerned local preservationists have been actively campaigning with the local municipality to deny Mr. Jobs' permits. That is all there is to this. Talking about this like what Jobs wants to do is some sort of legal infraction is just hyperbole. Asserting that the house is factually protected or that it is a recognized historic property is also not true. Rather, this house is a structure which some people think is of historic interest, and because the think this they also believe it should be protected. They have to this end interfered with the permitting process such that the permits required for demolition have been denied by the local city council. That's it - there is nothing more to this story.

If it were a Kirtland Cutter Home I'd imagine he'd have kept it:

Here is an example of a Villa he would have wanted:

http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.or...zzy=&maxfiles=



Kirtland Cutter: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm...fm&file_id=115

Too bad architects don't do it like Kirtland did in his day:

This virtual tour would be something of Steve's financial background could be put to use quite well:

http://www.glovermansiontour.com/

He never struck me much for that style and more of the Pasty Clark Mansion style:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pa...k_Mansion1.JPG

Completely wrong on every count.

The report determined that the property is eligible for listing on the California Register of Historical Resources, so in fact it IS considered to be historic by definition under California environmental law. To my knowledge, this fact was never disputed by ANYONE. However it should be understood that this is NOT a form of protection. This eligibility does NOT require that the house never be demolished. What it DOES require is that the property be considered to be an environmental resource for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). It does not have to be listed, just found to be eligible.

The establishment of this fact required the city to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which evaluates: (1) the environmental impacts of the proposed project, (2) the feasibility of alternatives to the proposed project, and (3) the adoption of measures to mitigate unavoidable adverse impacts. CEQA requires that environmental impacts be avoided when possible, and environmentally superior alternatives be pursued if they are feasible and meet the project objectives.

This last question was the issue which was litigated. It often is in controversial CEQA-related issues, as the provisions of the law are fairly vague, and much case law exists from which it is possible to argue a wide range of positions. Here, as if often the case, the court ended up deciding whether the city had done its homework properly.

Like it or not, this is how it works here in California. My sense is that you shouldn't be taking anyone else "to task" when you don't understand the basic issues, and can't be bothered to do more than skim.

I completely disagree. Being a property owner does not give you the rights to do anything you want. There are zoning laws and there are those who think that preserving open space and important architecture should sometimes take precedence over the ego and money of landowners.

"Money talks" will lead us (as it already has in some places) to a society of McMansions and shopping malls in Central Park and places like it. The problem in the United States is that since we are obsessed with money and also that we're a young country, we have no appreciation for either art or history. We have lost an incredible amount of great and important architecture in this country because of that attitude. Compare this with Paris, for example, which has preserved almost of all of its great architecture. Do you really want to live in a country where more and more of it looks like the worst parts of New Jersey?

If Steve wanted to put up a 23-story apartment building on the site, should he be permitted to do so just because he owns the property? If he moved into an area with numerous old-growth redwoods, should he be permitted to chop them down because he wanted to build a swimming pool in exactly that spot?

I'm not qualified to know whether this particular house is important architecture or not, but I'm puzzled as to why Jobs, who can live anywhere he wants, bought the place in the first place if he intended to knock it down and knew (since he had to ask permission) that there might be an issue with its destruction.

I used to live in Park Slope in Brooklyn, an area comprising primarily of Civil War era brownstones and mansions. Part of the area is protected. There are always people who want to knock down a brownstone and build something else. If that's what they wanted, they shouldn't have bought there in the first place.

I'm surprised this place hasn't mysteriously burned down yet.

I agree.

Short of that, I would have demolished the house and built a small Tubmleweed house just to flip the bird at political and historical no-nothings.

Ref: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/