Amaya Toman In the first half of the eighties of the last century, Steve Jobs bought a house called Jackling House. He lived in the rather magnificent building from the 20s, equipped with twenty rooms, for only a few years before he moved to Palo Alto, California. You might think that Jobs must have loved Jackling House, the mansion he bought himself. But the truth is a little different. For a while, Jobs hated the Jackling House so intensely that, despite its historical value, he sought to have it demolished.
Purchase before leaving
In 1984, when Apple's fame was soaring and the first Macintosh had just been introduced, Steve Jobs bought Jackling House and moved into it. The fourteen-room building was built in 1925 by mining baron Daniel Cowan Jackling. He chose one of the most important California architects of the time, George Washington Smith, who designed the mansion in the Spanish Colonial style. Jobs lived here for approximately ten years. These were the years that perhaps saw his worst moments, but ultimately also his gradual new beginning.
In 1985, about a year after buying the house, Jobs had to leave Apple. He was still living in the house when he met his future wife, Laurene Powell, who was a student at Stanford University at the time. They got married in 1991, and lived in Jackling House for a short time when their first son, Reed, was born. Eventually, however, the Jobs couple moved south to a house in Palo Alto.
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"Terle That House to the Ground"
By the late 90s, Jackling House was largely empty and left to fall into disrepair by Jobs. The windows and doors were left open, and the elements, along with the rampages of vandals, gradually took their toll on the house. Over time, the once magnificent mansion has become more of a ruin. A ruin that Steve Jobs literally hated. In 2001, Jobs insisted that the house was beyond repair and asked the town of Woodside, where the mansion was located, to allow him to demolish it. The city eventually approved the request, but local preservationists banded together and filed an appeal. The legal battle lasted almost a decade - until 2011, when an appeals court finally allowed Jobs to demolish the building. Jobs first spent some time trying to find someone willing to take over the entire Jackling House and relocate it. However, when that effort failed for fairly obvious reasons, he agreed to let the town of Woodside salvage what it wanted from the house in terms of decorations and furnishings.
Gallery
So a few weeks before the demolition, a group of volunteers scoured the house, looking for anything that could be easily removed and preserved. An action began which resulted in the removal of several lorries full of items including a copper mailbox, intricate roof tiles, woodwork, fireplaces, light fixtures and moldings that were very period specific and once a beautiful example of the Spanish Colonial style. Some of the equipment of Jobs' former house found its place in the local museum, the city warehouse, and some of the equipment went to auction after a few more years.
