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Professorville Historic District
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| Location: | Palo Alto, California |
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| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 80000861 [1] |
| Added to NRHP: | October 3, 1980 |
Professorville is a Registered Historic District in Palo Alto, California that contains homes that were built by Stanford University professors. The historic district is bounded by Kingsley and Addison avenues and the cross streets of Ramona and Waverly. The community considers the district to be larger and bounded by Addison and Cowper St. to the north west and north east and Emerson St. and Embarcadero Rd. to the south west and south east.[2] [3]
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The Professorville Historic District reflects the area's origins and its early years to the founding of both Stanford University and Palo Alto itself. Stanford University allowed professors to build houses on Stanford land, but would only lease the land itself. Professorville was the closest place to the campus and downtown Palo Alto that was not owned by the Stanfords. Professors who preferred to own rather than lease university land built their homes there. [4] Lot size in Professorville vary greatly in size and location including flag lots. The developer of the tract was eager to sell the land and so he sold various lot sizes including full blocks and half blocks. The owners of the large lots then sold of portions of their property starting at the outer edges of their property until the original buildings themselves were on a modest sized lots.[5] 2009 average home prices in Professorville are 1.4 million dollars for 1 bedroom houses to 2.2 million dollars for 4 bedroom houses.[6]
Stately Dutch Colonials dominate three blocks of Kingsley Avenue. At 450 Kingsley Avenue is the former home of one of Stanford University's pioneer professors, Ferando Sanford, who headed the physics department. The architect, Frank McMurray of Chicago, was a former student of Professor Sanford. He designed the three-story, 14-room frame house with a variety of features fashionable at the time--a Queen Anne corner tower, a Palladian window in front and an unusual archway reaching out past the second story. The comfortable, columned front porch reaches across the front to the west side of the house, where a doorway, once the carriage entrance, has been covered over.
The buildings, which give the Professorville area its strongest image, are the brown-shingled houses whose stylistic allegiances range from the Colonial Revival to the American Craftsman.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.
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