Publication Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2004
This old house
This old house
(September 29, 2004)
by Bill D'Agostino
It's the classic Palo Alto story.
A family buys an old house, tears it down, and builds a new one. Last weekend, the tale unfolded at 1830 Cowper St., believed to be the original dwelling on the street.
The burgundy, five-bedroom, Craftsman-style cottage was constructed in 1916, according to historical documents. It was one of the first homes built in the now posh area south of Embarcadero Road.
"It's a fine example of a Craftsman bungalow," noted Beth Bunnenberg, the chair of the city's Historic Resources Board. "It really is very sad to think about that house going down."
Over the past weekend, pieces of the old home and its detached garage -- from wavy glass windows to French doors, from Douglas Fir flooring to a China cabinet -- were sold to interested buyers and collectors. While door frames and doorknobs were carried away, workers stripped the walls with rotary handsaws, preparing the home and small, detached garage for demolition.
Disappointed neighbors and preservationists decried the loss of the two-story, 2,900-square-foot home.
"It's a beautiful place," one said, recalling how it started out as a simple cottage owned by a Stanford professor. "We're sad to see it go."
"This is a lovely old home that someone would buy if we allowed a little more time before the wrecking ball destroys it," Maureen Roddy wrote in an e-mail to the City Council asking them to intervene. "I think if Palo Alto residents knew that this home was about to be destroyed they would be furious."
There was no protection for the house, though. A cursory survey of Palo Alto residential structures, sponsored by the city in the late 1990s, judged it to be potentially worthy of a listing on the California Register of Historical Resources. However, that possibility was not enough for further study for inclusion on the city's list of historic homes.
The age of a second-floor addition is unknown, something that might determine the home's exact historical value, according to Dennis Backlund, a city planner whose expertise is historic structures. The addition is staying as part of the new home.
In March 2000, voters narrowly rejected a measure that would have given protection to hundreds of houses on the city's inventory. Currently, homes on the list only get city review prior to demolition or renovation.
The city no longer keeps record about how often homes like 1830 Cowper St. are destroyed, but between 1999 and 2002 around 30 a year were lost. Homes on the inventory are very rarely destroyed, Backlund said.
The first owner of 1830 Cowper St. was P.A. Ross, a distinguished member of Stanford University's physics department, who contributed to research in the development of X-rays and perfected a high-powered spectrometer.
Dr. Ross died of a heart attack in the home in 1938. According to his obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle, he had a "well known" observatory in his backyard. The obituary also credits Ross (whose initials stood for Perley Ason) for creating a "Mars Eye" telescope, able to "detect the rings on Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the polar snow caps of Mars."
The new owner of the home, Kwaan Min Kwan, who reportedly bought the property for $2.7 million last year, just wanted more room.
"It was too small," said Jim Caldwell, the architect. "It really wasn't maximizing the lot."
The new house will slightly larger than the old house. It will also be a shingled Craftsman-style and two stories, according to Caldwell. "It should fit right it."
"I guess it's happening a lot in Palo Alto," he said.
Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com
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