It seems to me that any building that isn't actively attracting viewers or discussion has little basis for being officially listed as significant. Although we have a very nice little city, I'd be hard-pressed to think of any house here that attracts wide notice. It's not like we have the Winchester Mystery House or Filoli here. Perhaps I'm just ignorant of local gems...

When a home is designated and listed the owner can remodel the interior regardless. Palo Alto has character and keeping the fabric of our town is essential. People freak out because they
think the value of their home will diminish should it be listed. That is a false assumption. Why do Americans gush at the architecture in France or England where homes are in harmony with the environment? I agree with the Historic Resources Board in indentfying houses that meet the standard in keeping Palo Alto’s integrity. Yes Eichler, Clark and McMurray are just a few who contributed to Palo Alto’s heritage. Preserving our heritage counters the nouveau riche who buy homes for investment purposes only. Many live abroad knowing their property values are safe and will increase leaving them empty. What is the inventory of Palo Alto homes referred to as ghost houses? Stanford Land Management Real Estate buys homes in Palo Alto taking the town’s housing stock and often ghosts those properties. The city needs to protect its
heritage and keep Palo Alto’s character
for future generations.

Palo Alto has a severe housing shortage. Senate Bill 9 allows land owners to build a few new homes on their land. Historical designation strips land owners of this prerogative. So our city should NOT impose historical designation on a property against the owner's wishes. Our priority should be to welcome new neighbors, not to freeze in amber our current built environment.

I thought we eliminated the Palo Alto Historical Resources Board a dozen years ago after citizens complained about their inconsistent or reasonable historic designations. Perhaps all salaries and funding should be cut so this subject can go into the historic garbage pile. And we are paying for yet another consulting firm - Page & Turnbull.

The HP garage? Yes, that is historic. That is about it in Palo Alto.

I am disappointed that the residents (or non-residents) who are commenting see little value in designating structures as historic. Mondoman, please see this site Web Link for a lengthy list of extant buildings in Palo Alto, many of which list further links with details about the structures. The Stanford Historical Society has carefully documented many of the buildings on campus Web Link with seven books to date. Our town is charming, and that is the reason many of us chose to live here. Losing that charm will be a long-term loss, difficult if not impossible to restore. I agree with and support ALB's comments.

Please do not buy a historic house if you want to tear it down or alter it. Please buy a tract house in Midtown, not a hundred and twenty five year old house in Professorville.

People who don't care about preservation don't deserve to live in neighborhoods where people value the historic feeling and designs of older homes. My home is well over a hundred years old and I would never change it. It is incredibly well built and has features that could not be replicated today. I love it, and it was more expensive not with its historical designation. [Portion removed.]

The city has a right to maintain its character and history. People who don't like it can lump it. Buy a condo or a home with no historical value. Thanks.

In my humble opinion, the so-called "historical building" nonsense is just a power-grab of a bunch of NIMBYs on the property rights of those properties they do not own and should not have any say over.

@ Adam
Gee, how many times have I heard the YIMBY cliché “frozen in amber.” Time for some new talking points. We have a number of priorities, including preserving our history. We can certainly do that while “welcoming new neighbors.” They are not mutually exclusive.

How about making this opt in? Anyone with an eligible property can have their home listed.

This way personal freedom and choice will be preserved and no property can be listed without an opt in.

Opt in does make sense.

Know the facts. No one is suggesting that a property be designated as historic against the owner’s wishes. The PA Weekly once again appears to be an instrument of the developer community in needlessly stirring up controversy where none exists. Listing a property as qualifying for historic status does not mean it has been officially designated as one. Talk to the citizen heads of the HRB, and not just to developers and City staff who are aligned with them. Ask them what the intent is. Also, ask them what the benefits of historic status are. Articles like this that tell only one side of the story are a disservice to the community.

Let's hear it for Palo Alto and its use of yet another consulting firm producing yet another inconsistent and illogical list. I guess it's too tough for them to search county and local databases for a list of properties built before X date.

Friends and I who love our historic homes are breathing sighs of relief that the brilliant consultants ignored our beloved OLD homes built in 1898, 1923 and 1926.

Yet another waste of OUR taxpayer $$$$. Seriously who hires our consultants? Use the money wasted on these guys and the 3 -- THREE -- retail consultants to reopen our libraries!

We are in a mediterranean climate. I'm not an architecht or an appraiser but I wouldn't buy a historic home here because it's going to need to be re-built from the foundation to the roof at some point. At the expense of the owner, not a three-headed committee. These "historic" homes were not built to last forever. Take a tip from the UK. Land of castles that are a thousand years old. The local relatively new seller's race was not initiated by the economy. Homeowners are probably looking at "what's it going to cost me to repair the foundation, and how much profit could I make if I sell it right now?" And what does it matter if they sell it to a local or a foreign investor? Money spends the same no matter where it comes from.

Emperor, meet thy tailor.

MyFeelz please take a cold fish eye look at historic homes in Palo Alto. You are wrong that foundations must be replaced. The majority do not require new foundations. [Portion removed.]

Call me in 50 years and let me know how the historic buildings are holding up. [Portion removed.] Let science explain it. Web Link

@MyFeelz
Many, many houses are doing just fine after 50, 100 years or more. My sister lives in a house built in 1887. It requires maintenance, but so do all houses. She has not had to rebuild it “from the foundation to the roof.” (Of course, all houses need a new roof and other major projects from time to time, whatever their age.) I live in a house built in 1950. It is holding up just fine, too.

I see very little in Palo Alto (maybe el palo alto and hoover tower) that should be preserved in the face of the overwhelming need to tear down single family homes and build apartments. My fantasy is a future Palo Alto with architechtural gems like Paris that house enough people to allow for artists and musicians to abide there.

". My fantasy is a future Palo Alto with architechtural gems like Paris that house enough people to allow for artists and musicians to abide there."

Nice fantasy but one that disappeared decades ago along with the places one could go to hear live music and maybe even dance to it. More recently, the destruction of 85 middle-income housing units at the President Hotel managed to evict a number OF musicians, piano instructors and artists by the former city manager who wanted more hotel taxes to feed the city's insatiable need to hire more "retail" consultants with no local knowledge.

One just needs to review the "entertainment" choices in the Best of Palo Alto features over the years to see that the top-rated "entertainment" was a WIFI spot!!

As for destroying beautiful old homes to create more MARKET RATE studios, do you honestly think Paris would be a tourist attraction developments like those proposed under Builder's Remedy??

How about an overwhelming need to tear down office blocks and replace them with apartments ?

Especially as theses very office blocks were built claiming only one office worker per 250 sq ft, now accommodate double, triple, or quadruple that number of new Bay Area employees brought here by the tech companies and paid to outcompete and displace existing residents.

@ Bill Fitch
Allow me to add to your list of historic sites in PA: the Squire House (900 University Ave.), Lucie Stern Community Center (1305 Middlefield Road); Pedro de Lemos house (100 Waverley Oaks); HP Garage (367 Addison Ave.); Ramona Street Historical District downtown; the United States Postal Office downtown; the Greenmeadow Historic District; the Green Gables Historic District; and the Professorville Historic District. For more information about the history of your city, including more sites of interest, please contact the Palo Alto Historical Association or Palo Alto-Stanford Heritage (PAST). They will be happy to help.

What is "historically significant" about these residences? The few addresses listed in this article are sited as examples of a certain style or architect. Either way, what makes that "significant"? These styles of homes exist in Palo Alto as well as numerous other cities. What value is there in designating a Spanish Colonial home (or Craftsman or Colonial Revival) as significant when there are thousands or more of them in this region? Historical significance designation should be reserved for when the location itself has impact (HP garage is good example), or when the building is remarkable in its rarity and preservation is required. There is already an enormous amount bureaucracy associated with home upkeep, remodel, building, do we really need this?

How about a drastic reduction in permit fees--or no fees--for houses invited to be on the historic registry? Since owners may need to hire higher-priced contractors to do specialty work, and more ongoing work may be needed, our city can contribute to this preservation effort with give and take on both sides. Perhaps there are other perks that would make being on the historic list a desirable outcome!

I agree with Ferdinand. Why can't the City of Palo Alto give the owners of historic homes
financial incentives? They can do this through lower permit fees, relaxed codes and variances when remodeling, Homeowners will want to upgrade these homes and add more living space if they can save on construction costs. The city fees are super expensive!

The Mills Act (from 1972) provides financial incentives (including property tax relief) for preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings. It's administered by local governments.

Relaxed code requirements and variances are also available in Palo Alto, though I'm not familiar with the details.

While I'm here, a few other quick comments.

Opt-in is not a simple thing. If an owner opts-in to restrictions, does that constrain all future owners for all time? If any future owner can opt-out, does that mean essentially all historic homes will disappear or degrade irreparably over time? Opt-in by itself doesn't solve the trade-off between property rights and preservation.

In addition to the question of significance for individual homes, there's also the question of collective significance. Areas may be judged significant even when the majority of buildings within them are not individually significant. This is true of Professorville, for example. One consequence is that changes, even to houses that are not individually significant, might be judged unacceptable because of their effect on the district. Adding height to buildings within a district that's predominantly short would be an example.

Objective standards help a lot, and while the Secretary of the Interior's Standards are partly subjective, the objective parts are still useful. There are hundreds of relevant cases where these things have been analyzed for CEQA reviews. It's a big subject.

(Speaking only for myself, not for the Planning and Transportation Commission.)

Housing tracts are built in waves using what ever the accepted style and available building materials are available.

I grew up in West Hollywood. All of the homes on my block had a similar design - tile roofs with a Spanish style. Garage in the back. A relative's home in the Oakland hills built in that same time period is Spanish with a tile roof. Note that Oakland has designated neighborhoods each with characteristic style and appearance. In Palo Alto we have the Eichler homes - we also have contractors who are specific to the Eichler home characters of design.

College Terrace homes were built at a time when the University was under construction. They are very special as they denote a time period that we should recognize as period development specific to our cities' growth.

The current political people want to eliminate the history of our state which is only five generations deep. WE need to resist and keep out history of development as part of our history. And no - all of the hype to tear down and replace is just that - hype. Getting harder to sell that rant.