Steve Jobs' House

Before Bryan Turner was the president and CEO of the Preservation Society of Charleston, he worked for many years for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In a sense, Bryan's career has been defined by legal, social, financial, and historical debates about America's past, but one dispute about whether Steve Jobs could demolish a historic home in California has stuck with him. 

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. An ad executive once called the Lexus car brand, quote, very rational, very logical. An international peace organization recently cautioned Syrians after the fall of Assad to be, quote, wise and rational instead of drifting into the abyss.

Michael Lee: When a conservative judge who had been tricked by the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen sued the comedian for defamation, a different judge said that no defamation had occurred because Cohen's work was, quote, clearly comedy, and no reasonable viewer could conclude otherwise. All of these statements rest on a fundamental split between reason and emotion, between what's rational and irrational.

Michael Lee: And even though they all seem to make an intuitive sense, Getting to the bottom of what's rational and what's [00:01:00] emotional can be really tricky. Harmless examples like these, picking up a heads up penny, not walking under ladders, not opening umbrellas inside, seem to be based on views about luck and causality that are clearly irrational.

Michael Lee: But something much more socially harmful can happen with the popularization of this kind of magical thinking. Historians estimate that between 60 and 100, 000

Michael Lee: alleged witches We're killed in France and Germany between 14 and 1600s. For crimes like wrecking ships and destroying crops and irrational thinking is not just a pre modern phenomenon Millio many million and billion dollar industries promising cures and promoting effective treatments of this and that are based on bad science So what we need to consider is a few things One, an approach to reasoning that gets us out of the trap of magical thinking.

Michael Lee: Two, an [00:02:00] approach to reason that doesn't dismiss emotion But considers the emotions another vital source of information in our reasoning efforts and three, an approach to reason that is social, not just individual, because all democracies are a gamble on the reasoning abilities of strangers. I'm Michael Lee, professor of communication and director of the civility initiative.

Michael Lee: At the college of Charleston. Our guest today is Brian Turner. Brian is the president and CEO of the Charleston Preservation Society. The first grassroots membership preservation society in America. Brian, tell us an argument story. 

Bryan Turner: All right. Well, thank you for inviting me here, Dr. Lee. I'm, I'm, I'm very pleased to be on this podcast today.

Bryan Turner: I wanted to tell a story of, uh, an advocacy effort we had as a young attorney. I was just fresh out of law school with an organization called the National Trust for Historic Preservation out west in [00:03:00] San Francisco and, um, an item came to my desk that Steve Jobs was tearing down his historic house. And, um, I quickly investigated kind of the facts involved, and it had been a, um, a multiple year effort.

Bryan Turner: I sort of came in on the tail end, but it was, it was a really formative experience for me as an advocate, as somebody who cares about historic properties, in just understanding It's a challenging interface between when private property owners want to do what they will with their property versus sort of the governmental and societal interest in preserving houses for the future.

Michael Lee: The audience is likely to know a little bit about Steve Jobs and unlikely to know much about this house. So tell us about this house and tell us why you wanted to tear it down. 

Bryan Turner: Yeah. So the quick facts are that in, in the early eighties, Steve Jobs is a [00:04:00] bachelor. in, um, Silicon Valley purchased a 17, 000 foot estate that was built, um, for, uh, a copper magnet named Daniel Jackling in the 1920s by a famous architect named George Washington Smith.

Bryan Turner: And George Washington Smith is notable in California for for bringing the Spanish colonial revival movement. So places like Santa Barbara and Montecito, you think of the, um, the clay tile houses sort of modeled on, um, Spanish, uh, Spanish culture and estates. And it was, was in California, I think in the twenties, it was a signature of, of folks who had wealth and prestige.

Bryan Turner: Uh, who were doing these sort of European style and, 

Michael Lee: And then Steve Jobs as a signature of wealth and prestige wanted to tear it down? 

Bryan Turner: So years later, um, he, he indicated to the press in the early 2000s that he never intended to really live in the house. He saw the house as quote an [00:05:00] abomination. He thought it was in bad taste.

Bryan Turner: He never liked it. And, and I think that was, I mean, we accepted that as true based on the condition the house was in at the time. It was totally run down. He never. It looked like he never put a dime into it as far as, um, maintenance. Just suffering from pretty extreme, uh, what we call demolition by neglect.

Michael Lee: So it sounds like he had a case of sort of extreme buyer's remorse? 

Bryan Turner: Uh, maybe. I, I think he liked living on the land. Often, often with, um, preservation issues. People move to a, a certain locale because they like the place on earth. Yeah. But they might not like the house associated with it. 

Michael Lee: Well, maybe with, uh, whatever.

Michael Lee: Talk about the larger issues this raises about private property, about our relationship with the past, about these historic structures, but what ended up happening with y'all's fight with Steve Jobs over this house? 

Bryan Turner: Yeah, ultimately there's a, um, there's a California appellate court decision that, that [00:06:00] actually held him up and said that more evidence was needed of the feasibility.

Bryan Turner: Actually the infeasibility of fixing it, California has a pretty stringent law on the books. Um, and this was in the town of Woodside. And, um, ultimately his lawyer came back with more information about the infeasibility of, of fixing it. There was a, it was a numbers game about how much it would cost to fix versus the cost of a new house.

Bryan Turner: And, uh, he succeeded in tearing it down. It was February 2011. Um, it was covered pretty extensively in the press. And, um, Jobs, um, unfortunately, he died later that year. So he never, uh, rebuilt on the site. He just was torn down. And I, I believe his widow built on the site maybe five years later. 

Michael Lee: So in the end, the house was, was torn down after a lengthy court battle over how much it would cost to fix it and whether that was feasible.

Michael Lee: Yeah, 

Bryan Turner: essentially, whether or not the town had enough evidence to support, um, [00:07:00] the demolition permit application. 

Michael Lee: It's a kind of fascinating story, especially for a young lawyer like yourself working in this case, coming up against big Silicon Valley money and also a massive American personality and a kind of world changing technological entrepreneur.

Michael Lee: Exactly. So I can sort of see why it's so interesting from the outside, but it also probably has a more personal story for you. Why does this stand out in your career in historic preservation? 

Bryan Turner: Yeah, um, it's a great question, and I think one thing I really like about the preservation movement, and it's, it's, we're really talking about is conservation of the cultural and the human environment, and it's something a little different than the natural resource.

Bryan Turner: Conversation, but not entirely different because it, the question is always the nature of the governmental interest and the societal interest in preserving and protecting historic property against, um, the collective interest in, in upholding, uh, [00:08:00] private property rights. And, um, I think that really through a case like this.

Bryan Turner: You learn that, um, these are very personal issues when it comes to, um, private owners of estates that might not be otherwise enjoyed by the public. These are hard cases. And I think I've been really, through my career, really cemented as a preservationist. I'm somebody who speaks for those values. But I, I can't deny that, um, I understand, you know, people's strong feelings, especially somebody like Steve Jobs, a total innovative pioneer in technology who wants to create a house for the next generation, which would likely be designated historic itself at some point in time.

Michael Lee: It's a peculiar irony here where, if I'm understanding this right, a copper magnate hires George Washington Smith, is that right? Yeah. To build him a [00:09:00] fancy house. That house ends up being so fancy that others deem it part of the public conversation about our own cultural heritage. Yeah. Then it falls into disrepair.

Michael Lee: then falls into the hands of another magnate, so to speak, who then wants to tear it down. Yeah. So it's been private property this whole time. Yeah. And so where is the compelling public interest or social interest in preserving part of quote unquote, our cultural heritage, what has always been 

Bryan Turner: private property?

Bryan Turner: Well, the details are in the laws that, that, um, communities like Charleston, or in this case, the town of Woodside decide to adopt. It's always in. Um, the discretion, you know, of a town, unless federal funds are involved in America, you know, we have up to upwards of 4, 000 different types of local preservation ordinances, some more stringent than the others.

Bryan Turner: Um, Charleston is actually very pioneering in that it was the first place in America in the 30s that used the government [00:10:00] power of interest in history and aesthetics. To essentially take some of those sticks in the bundle and the property rights from others and say we will not give you a demolition permit For this and so it's a political judgment to put these laws on the books in the first place that's right in this case the town of Woodside had the law on the books and so there was review of the demolition permit and when historians evaluated the house, they found that that connection to to the Daniel Jackling and, um, the rarity of George Washington Smith work in northern California, um, sort of warranted a preservation approach.

Michael Lee: The ancient Greeks used to teach rhetoric and rhetorical skill in part through a process called the Disoi Logoi, which essentially just means arguing both sides of the case. You're, it sounds like you're arguing both sides of the case yourself and still are, and part of your job is balancing the compelling public social interests with the private property interests.

Michael Lee: Right. Let's [00:11:00] do a little Disoi Logoi as we speak here and just ask you to make the case for both sides. Let's start on the preservation side. What do we lose if we allow the market and wealthy individuals to determine what from our cultural and architectural past gets preserved? 

Bryan Turner: So it's really the death by a thousand cuts type argument.

Bryan Turner: If one person is exempted from doing it because of the nature of their influence or power and, and, um, and they set a precedent, then everybody should be entitled to that exemption. So what we're trying to do is, is really use, I think, the precautionary principle to evaluate, um, all the feasible ways of restoring historic properties before they're gone.

Bryan Turner: So we can leave to the next. generation, um, evidence of the past and, um, a reminder that we're part of a broad continuum. 

Michael Lee: And then in those instances, this [00:12:00] precautionary principle, does that precautionary principle only apply to the most ostentatious expressions of wealth from the past? Or are we preserving typical properties?

Michael Lee: Yeah, 

Bryan Turner: that's a, that's a great question. I think preservation movement as a whole has struggled with that. I think that when We started crafting laws in the 60s. There was a real focus on grandeur and mansions. I mean, think of Charleston. That's right. So, but I do think that there's been a movement away from that.

Bryan Turner: If you look at a lot of how modern ordinances are sort of being drafted and function, it's really thinking about other cultural values, um, really trying to elevate, um, Everyone's story rather than just the story of certain people through time, but I I would admit that it's that it's a challenge that we are sort of making up lost time where there was a theory that we're moving away from that.

Bryan Turner: This is [00:13:00] really about protecting the. The birthplaces of the presidents, or the battlefields, or the, um, or the really, really undoubtedly, unquestionably important eras of American history, and thinking about it more as a conservation movement for all stories in America. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, it's such a fascinating, and just sticking with this kind of like, Preservation at all costs, extreme version of the argument for a second.

Michael Lee: It seems like the more we would try to preserve all stories and not just stories of grandeur, that it would end up kind of biasing the market in favor of those who have great means. Um, in the instance, right? Because if I bought a house that was, let's say modest in its day, but I had to preserve it in a way, according to the standards of the public, that's going to occur a lot of expense.

Michael Lee: And so then who is going to be able to buy properties that need the kind of historic preservation that we're talking about? It ends up being biased towards, again, [00:14:00] the 1%. Am I wrong about that? 

Bryan Turner: Well, you can look at it that way. You can also look at it as a compelling rationale to involve government in the decisions about, you know, whether to sponsor tax credits for people.

Bryan Turner: Because we're really thinking about short term costs. of fixing something up versus the long term costs. So, take a vinyl window. Vinyl window, guarantee on a vinyl window is 15 to 20 years. Okay. Historic wood windows can last for 100 years. And so, if you do have the capital to invest in the restoration of your, your rotted out window, um, you'll add value that will continue a lot longer than that vinyl window.

Bryan Turner: So, there are Functional reasons, um, to encourage preservations, to preserve the lifespan of, think of the old growth wood embedded in the floor that you just can't find anymore. Right, right. Um, there's good environmental rationales to do it. Um, it is true that we have to make sure we get people over the hump and get them there and use the tools of government to encourage good behavior as [00:15:00] well as restrict it.

Michael Lee: Let's take the other side of the case to a more market driven case that, to Steve Jobs's point, he has, through the marketplace and through his domination of a very specific marketplace, accrued the capital to buy a former copper magnate's kind of dilapidated home, but still 17, 000 square feet on what I imagine is an amazing piece of property.

Michael Lee: And he will then very likely produce more history on that. It's a private property through his privately earned capital. And so the market in that case determines what survives, what goes, what stays. Meanwhile, government might have a compelling interest to express social history through monuments.

Michael Lee: Through battlefields, et cetera. So it doesn't mean the market controls everything, but when it comes to private residences, 

Bryan Turner: yeah, 

Michael Lee: make a case for that side. 

Bryan Turner: Yeah. On Steve jobs aside, what I would say is that unlike Charleston, where anybody can explore the streets and witness and see this kind of colonial era history, um, this is an [00:16:00] estate on six acres of land at the end of a cul de sac on a mountainous road that.

Bryan Turner: No one gets to see and it's a real tree falls in the woods kind of argument where What is the compelling interest in preserving something if people aren't able To look at it, 

Michael Lee: right? This is not Williamsburg. This is not Boston. This is not Charleston This is not downtown, San Diego. Yeah, this is a private residence in a private neighborhood.

Michael Lee: There's no foot traffic here 

Bryan Turner: Right. Steve Jobs's other point that he made, um, and he, he spoke at the town of Woodside council meeting, and this is sort of reported on, and I mean, he just said, listen, this was not built well. This guy didn't have a good taste. And I, I, you know, I find that to be just really, um, really interesting because, um, preservation, I, like the strict preservationist in me says that this shouldn't be about taste.

Bryan Turner: But I also, I think that [00:17:00] we should focus the energies of preservationists on things that are built well and built to last. Um, I think that there is a good rationale for doing that because, um, you know, and I don't, I don't, I never visited the Jackman Goss. I can't necessarily have a, And analyze that on whether I agree or don't agree, but, um, I think he makes a point there that we have to, we have to take into account, uh, when we think about what, what is worth preserving.

Michael Lee: And then I presume that in your work today and informed by the case you're narrating right here, your work is about balancing these two competing interests. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like that's the direction we're going. And that's what the ancient Greeks were sort of doing with the Disoi Logoi is let's find a way through here.

Michael Lee: And see the world from the other perspective as well. That's right. So I assume much of the kind of balancing work you're doing is really on a case by case basis, structure by structure, street by street, city by city. You're located [00:18:00] here in Charleston, but this work applies nationally and internationally.

Michael Lee: But even on that case by case basis, are there generic, broad standing principles that can inform the way that you make case by case judgments? 

Bryan Turner: That's a great question. So, it's true. The, um, what I like to say about historic preservation generally is that if you survey people, should we save, uh, historic houses?

Bryan Turner: Most people would say yes. Okay. What happens is that some competing public policy interest comes into play. And it could be private property values in the case of Steve Jobs. In another case, it could be, Well, um, you know, environmental contamination, let's say that there's lead paint, remediation is so expensive.

Bryan Turner: Usually it comes down to a cost issue, but there could be other compelling societal needs. And I like to keep that in mind because I think that political support for preservation is really critical [00:19:00] to keep these laws in place. It just takes a majority vote of any city council, including the Charleston City Council, to just say, We don't want the Board of Architectural Review anymore.

Bryan Turner: We're done. We're done. So if we're not mindful of the political calculation in preservation We could lose the laws overnight. And so that is something that comes to play in my mind I think when you make a case for preserving something. You have to consider what the counterarguments are going to be. And, um, and balance them out.

Bryan Turner: Um, I think more purist style preservation approach is to say, regardless of what that interest is, we need to always promote this cause. And, and that's where organizations like ours, I think we have a role in that process. We're just going to be that voice. Ultimately, these are political decisions, and we need to, um, we need to respect that at the end of the day.

Bryan Turner: We win some, we lose some. 

Michael Lee: And it sounds like you won some and lost some, in that case [00:20:00] lost some in the California case of the copper magnate's house that Steve Jobs tore down shortly before his death. Looking back at that case, and last question. Which side do you think was right? 

Bryan Turner: I'm going to say the preservation side was right.

Bryan Turner: I think that what we're, what we're trying to do, and it's hard for people to understand all the time, is encourage certain behavior that, and you don't need to go 100 percent full board demolition. There's alternatives that can be explored. You can dismantle, remove, um, sell to another owner, you could do a partial preservation, incorporate elements of the house in a new design.

Bryan Turner: There's a lot of in between. And so I think I think the community was right, uh, to challenge that. Um, I, I wish, in retrospect, that, um, Mr. Jobs, who I, I, I should note, I respect in, in extreme way. Um, I wish he hadn't, um, seen it as such a battle between [00:21:00] one or another, but that there was a 

Michael Lee: compromise. It is not dichotomous.

Michael Lee: It is not a black and white issue. There is a kind of middle ground way through. 

Bryan Turner: Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, Ryan Turner Thanks so much for being on when we disagree. 

Bryan Turner: Thanks for having me. Dr Lee 

Michael Lee: when we disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Cunz and Lance Laidlaw reach out to us at when we disagree at gmail.

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