Steve Jobs will get to tear his old house down

Preservationists have finally ended their battle to preserve the house that Apple boss, Steve Jobs, loves to hate, the Jackling House in Woodside.

Jobs has wanted to demolish the house to replace it with his style of ‘iHome’ for years, which has led him into a fierce court battle with the local planners and preservationists. Even the local historical society seemd to think the place, owned by Jobs since 1984, had some significance.

Of course, it does, the house is a historic mansion in Woodside, California, designed and built for copper mining magnate Daniel Cowan Jackling and his family by the noted California architect George Washington Smith in 1925.

In 2004, Jobs received permission from the town of Woodside to demolish the house in order to build a smaller contemporary styled one. Local preservationists created a new group, ‘Uphold Our Heritage’ (UOH), dedicated to saving the historic residence. They sued the town and Jobs.

Eventually the courts gave Jobs permission to tear down the place if an appeal against the permit was not received.

Uphold Our Heritage on July 19 dropped its appeal of the last March 2010 ruling by San Mateo County Superior Judge Marie S. Weiner that granted Mr. Jobs a demolition permit.

They decided to do this once Jobs failed to respond to a proposal by Woodside residents Jason and Magalli Yoho to dismantle the house and move it elsewhere.

Jobs’ attorney, Howard Ellman, said that now the appeal had been abandoned, “we’re going forward”.

“The town has hired architectural historian Michael R. Corbett to conduct an inventory of historically significant parts of the house. Preserving these items for posterity is a key condition of the demolition permit issued by the town in 2009,” Almanac News reports.