I'm sure the City Council will all agree to demo the house, since it's not generating any revenue.
Forget the historical footprint. Pay the council enough money and you can build whatever you please.

This is ridiculous. For those who haven't been following along, Roger Burnell put up an ugly fence around the house, spray painted all around it and on the ground to make it look even worse than it already did, and then boarded up the windows to ensure that there was no way anyone could renovate the house.

Not helpful at all.

how would leaving this house benefit the city?

This old home has been in a sad state, been empty for a long time. One time a small shop called it home if you went you saw the poor state of the place. The city could have taken the place, picked it up and moved it to Cuesta Park annex but that turned out not a good option. The cost of fixing the place up for such a poor return on investment. You could spend public dollars on this old building or use funds on the teen center, a park or better yet fix up some classrooms

This useless building has been an eye sore since at least the early 90's when I first moved to the area. Over the years, many different businesses have been tried there and all have failed. The best option is to tear it down and repurpose it to more condos or more office space, both of which are needed in down town.

Just another example of why I left MV and never looked back...

In Denver, WHOLE CITY BLOCKS are made into Historic Neighborhoods. One of them is the size of downtown Mtn. View!

For instance, Black Hawk & Central City became gambling towns, but part of the big carrot was to maintain the original buildings!

And maintain they did! I saw the change from dilapidated old ( some empty ) buildings that became gambling hot spots. Like in the other post, don't hand the keys to the city to a developer. Don't try to collect your 30 pieces of silver...

Keep your past...or you will probably no longer be Mtn. View, just a suburb of San-San..( SJC to SFO )

( The irony: I have a better Mountain View from my deck and front steps than when I lived there in YOUR Mtn. View twenty years ago...)

We are talking about the same house, right? The dilapidated eyesore on a blighted corner near central downtown Mountain View?

It's not particularly old, is not architecturally distinctive, and didn't play any particular role in MV history. There really is no reason to keep it for the sake of keeping it.

@ the_punnisher: Seriously? Comparing a little Silicon Valley town to the one of the biggest and most historically significant cities of the western states is just stupid beyond belief. It's like comparing apples and walnuts. Then again, you can't even spell your own user name.

The house is so dilapidated that rebuilding it would replace nearly all of the material, leaving nothing of historical value. In that case, it would be much better to build a new house in the same style of this house (I think it is a very cute house) in a residential neighborhood, with modern building codes.

That place is disgusting and an eyesore. Please tear it down and build something that brings more people to downtown and makes it a more vibrant place to be.

Paul W. is right, after the fence went up, the homeless moved in ensuring that the place was too far gone to be renovated, and made it look ugly so noone would fight for it. It's of historical significance to Mountain View because it shows how a small business man and his family lived. Mansions are not the only piece of historical significance in this world.

I think a 3 story building would be enough and not so close to the lot lines as proposed.

Are we going to save every bit of history to prevents changes in the present that could hinder our future.

I hear there's this thing called snow in Denver. I'll just stay here, thanks.

Anyone saying to "save" this building has not seen it lately.

And the idea that we need to save every house that a small merchant lived in is just silly.

I know real property rights died a long time ago in this city but I still feel a person can do whatever they want with their property.

If this house is so historic then someone should put up the money (not tax money) and move it someplace and preserve it.

But just like Hangar One there are a lot of complainers but no one willing to pay the bill.

Something smells funny here, Roger Burnell has done everything and anything possible to marginalize this property, it wouldn't surprise me if he had his employees write in negative comments here.