After months of wrangling over a 78-year-old, 17,000-square-foot mansion in southern California Apple CEO Steve Jobs doesn’t want, it appears someone is willing to take it off his hands, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.
The paper reports 30 enquiries have been made into the property. Mr. Jobs, who has described the house as “one of the biggest abominations of a house I’ve ever seen”, is offering to give his old house away to anyone who wants it for free, as long as they are willing to move the house off the property. Mr. Jobs would rather not spend an estimated $10 million to restore the house, but instead build a newer, smaller one.
Interested is Dr. Timothy Chuter, a San Francisco-area surgeon. He plans on moving the home to a nearby 8-acre property and use it as a family home. He told the Chronicle, “I can see why Jobs would not want to live with it in its current state. It’s structured like a motel, with little apartments that you access from walkways and balconies.”
The next move is in the hands of the Woodside, Calif. town council, which must now approve the demolition and move, which is being objected to by a number of area preservationists. They and representatives from the National Trust for Historic Preservation consider the house to be an important piece of Woodside, Calif. history.
Mr. Jobs bought the house in 1984 for US$2 million and lived in it as a bachelor for 10 years.