Gallery: Beautiful Pictures Of Steve Jobs’ Abandoned Mansion
2:25 pm, May 13th, 2009, Leander Kahney
A chandelier inside Steve Jobs’ abandoned mansion. Photo by Jonathan Haeber, Bearings.
On Tuesday night, Woodside town council granted Steve Jobs a controversial demolition permit to tear down his rotting mansion in Woodside, California — one of Silicon Valley’s nicest and poshest towns.
Jobs bought the mansion in 1984, the year the Mac was released, and lived there with no furniture for almost a decade. But he hasn’t lived there for nearly 10 years, and he now wants to raze the house and build a smaller, greener dwelling on the land.
The mansion is locked up, but urban adventurer and photographer Jonathan Haeber sneaked into the house and took some rare and unbelievably beautiful pictures.
Explains Jonathan: “As far as how I obtained access, I can’t really say much, other than the fact that it was back in 2006. I found the gate open (I believe there was some landscaping work being done at the time) and the font door slightly ajar. I had my camera on me, and being substantially curious found myself inside of the mansion. I came back soon afterward for a night trip, explicitly to photograph the architecture. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life and I don’t regret doing it.”
Haeber’s photographs show Jobs’ mansion in all its faded glory. Haeber’s haunting pictures include dusty copies of The Godfather videotapes; vines creeping across interior ceilings; and the front of the boarded-up mansion with its immaculately-maintained front lawn.
The pictures are poignant and lovely, and are possibly the last that will be taken of the mansion. On Tuesday, the Woodside town council approved a demolition permit.
Jonathan is an architecture buff who is working to catalog abandoned historical buildings on the West Coast.
He lives in Richmond, California, across the Bay from Woodside, and documents his adventures at his Bearings website. There’s a video explaining his project on the TBug website.
Jon has also photographed Michael Jackson’s empty Neverland Ranch and a flooded Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans.
Posted by Leander Kahney in News, Steve Jobs | Comment on this article
Ok maybe I’m just not a big enough mac geek, or maybe I’m late to the party..
But The Steve has an abandoned mansion?!
where can I read more about this? shame they’re tearing it down. I would think it would sell nicely.
shaunathan, on May 13th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
@shaunathan. see the post just below this one: Steve Jobs Wins Permission To Raze Historic Pile
http://cultofmac.com/steve-jobs-wins-permission-to-raze-historic-pile/10643
This has been a long ongoing saga. There’s a lot of information on the Friends of the Jackling House website: http://www.friendsofthejacklinghouse.org/
Leander Kahney, on May 13th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Geez, this takes me back. Back in the late 70s when I was in high school, that house belonged to a classmate’s family (I googled up a map to confirm). His dad was a founder of National Semiconductor, as I recall. It was a very big house. In one corner of the ballroom sat the pipe organ’s four-manual console. We thought of having my band play there… The pipe organ would be perfect for our progressive rock pretensions. Luckily, a few of us developed better musical taste before that all came together.
Jim “no, I didn’t grow up in that neighborhood” Feeley
Jim Feeley, on May 14th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
The “Friends of the Jackling House” were given plenty of chances to take the house for FREE and move it elsewhere, but failed to come up with the cash to do so. It’s Steve’s land; he has the right to do what he wants with it. Period.
Here’s a pic of Steve sitting in one of the rooms sometime around ‘82 or so- http://www.romain-moisescot.com/steve/media/life/galleries/1955-1985/Pages/Misc._photos_of_1982.html#0
BDDC, on May 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm