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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-07-13 Historic Resources Board Summary Minutes City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Martin Bernstein, Vice Chair Bower, Board Member Wimmer, Beth Bunnenberg, Roger Kohler, Michael Makinen Absent: Brandon Corey, Council Member Holman Chair Bernstein: Good morning everybody and welcome to the July 13th meeting of the Historic Resources Board. Would staff please call roll? Thank you. Oral Communications Chair Bernstein: Next on our agenda is oral communications. The public may speak to any item, not on the agenda. I don’t see any speaker cards. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to us on any item, not on the agenda? Seeing none. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Bernstein: Next would agenda changes, additions, and deletions. Are there any revisions? Vice Chair Bower? Vice Chair Bower: I would like to request that we review the minutes of our two prior meetings at our next meeting. We had a lot of information to cover for this meeting and I didn’t get a chance to review the minutes. If other Board Members are comfortable with that, then I’d like to suggest that we do that. Chair Bernstein: Ok, any comments? Ok. All those in favor? Aye. Ok, we’ll review those another feature meeting; sometime in August, perhaps. City Official Reports 1. Historic Resources Board (HRB) Meeting Schedule and Assignments Chair Bernstein: Next will be our City official reports. Are there any reports to make? Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: No reports other than we are planning to cancel the July 27th meeting but we will have the August 10th meeting and we do have a meeting with items on that. One of the items is going to be the joint – the topics for the scheduled or tentatively scheduled joint meeting with the Council and HRB, which is at the end of August. August 28th, I believe is the date so be thinking about topic. You can email me topics if you’d like and then I’ll put that on the agenda discussion of topics and have some lists of things. Chair Bernstein: Great. HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD MEETING MINUTES: July 13, 2017 City Hall/City Council Chambers 250 Hamilton Avenue 8:30 A.M. City of Palo Alto Page 2 Ms. French: Thanks. Chair Bernstein: Thank you. Study Session 2. Discussion of Historic Resources Report Prepared Regarding the Stanford General Use Permit Amendment (2018) Application Section 1, Section 2, Section 3 Chair Bernstein: Next on our agenda is a study session, discussion of Historic Resources Report prepared regarding the Stanford General Use Permit Amendment application. Shall Staff have an introductory comment for us, please? Ms. Hillary Gitelman, Director of Planning: Thank you Chair Bernstein and Board Members, Hillary Gitelman the Planning Director. I wanted to thank the representatives of Stanford University and the County for being here today. We had asked them to make themselves available for the Board's review of the technical study that supports the EIR that’s being prepared for the Stanford Cup. Dr. Jones is here from Stanford and I think she’ll probably offer a brief presentation and then we’re interested in the Board’s comments. Any comments you have will help us when the draft EIR comes out to formulate the City’s comment letter back to the County. So, that’s all I have to say but we’re happy to answer questions after Dr. Jones’s presentation. Chair Bernstein: Ok, thank you. Dr. Jones, please. Welcome. Ms. Laura Jones: Thank you, it’s nice to be back again so soon. Our historic resources survey has five authors and two of us are here today. Sapna Marfatia my colleague, the Director of Architecture at Campus Planning and Design at Stanford is going to present the architecture section of this. We did a run through and we’re on time so hopefully, we will get through it efficiently. Our agenda is to talk a little bit about why we did the survey, what our goals were in the survey and then we’re going to discuss the historical context framework we constructed for evaluating our academic buildings. Then briefly we will talk about the results of that survey and the historic resources at Stanford section. I am sure you’ve all had a chance to see the document and it’s very long so we’re trying to just give you an overview about what our thoughts were as we prepared it. These were the objectives that we wanted to identify, architectural styles that represent the evolution of collegiate architecture. The first thing we did – we’re following the Secretary of Interior Standards for preservation planning. A set of standards that talk about how to do a survey and you need to identify your property type and develop them based on your property type. So, for our college buildings, we developed a framework that’s about collegiate architecture. We then looked at buildings at Stanford and whether they embodied important examples of the themes in collegiate architecture. It’s the framework for compliance with the Secretary of Interior Standards for the treatment for historic properties. So, buildings that are found eligible in the survey, once the County excepts those findings, will then be subject to compliance with the Sectary of Interior Standards for the treatment of historic properties. We evaluated all the buildings built before 1974 in the survey area and we ‘ve committed in 10-years to doing an addendum to the survey, that would bring us up to 1984. We felt it was too soon to be looking at 1984. The survey scope, I know it’s – I’m sorry. I apologize that it’s a little hard to see on the slide. There is a blue area up there in the middle of that map, which is the development area for the General Use Permit. It is our academic campus so we didn’t survey the campus open space because there’s no proposed development there. We didn’t survey the faculty subdivision because it’s governed by zoning and not by the – entirely by the Use Permit. The document includes a historic setting, a narrative history of land use and development in that blue zone. Then it includes the development of the context and evaluation framework. Then in the appendices, which are more than half of the document, there’s the inventory of Collegiate buildings. All 400 buildings and our findings are in Appendix A. Appendix B is the Department of Parks and Rec registration forms, which is the County’s format for reporting significant properties. Appendix C is about non-collegiate properties, which we’ll talk about a little bit later. Things that didn’t fit within the college theme. It’s not City of Palo Alto Page 3 moving, oops. Maybe? I am stuck. Here we go, let’s try it again. Can someone – I can’t see that. Can somebody help me get it back on there? It wouldn’t advance and it kicked me out. Ok, sorry, it stopped advancing. It’s not going down and I don’t know what – there we go. I’ll try this scroll. Yeah, I don’t normally roll. Alright, so historic setting, this is the history section of this document. It was prepared by myself, Anthony Kurt, who is a consulting historian to us who did the agricultural histories and Julie Kane, Historian for Heritage Services, who wrote the history of development of the campus itself. It’s a narrative that follows in chronological order and is essentially the story of the University. Let’s see if that’s – now, I am going to introduce Sapna, who is going to come up and talk about the historical context that we developed. What I would say, as she is coming up to talk about this, is that we started by looking State wide at Colleges and Universities and we quickly discovered that was too big. There are over 250 Colleges and University’s built before 1974 in California and so we zeroed in on an official planning category, it turns out, which are the Bay Area Counties. There are over 70 Universities in our comparison set and this is – it was really actually a joy to go through this. Julie and I researched all of those Universities, found out where they were founded, identified the buildings from these periods at those University’s and the Bay Area, I have to say, as a wealth of really beautiful Colleges and Universities. So, Sapna is going to explain the Collegiate architecture. Ms. Sapna Marfatia: Good morning, so I am going to talk more about the architecture and we’re going to start really broad. Just identifying what it meant to be a University on the West Coast. We’re going to, for the time being, ignore that there were old University’s in the – not West Coast but the West versus the East. So, there were Universities in the East but the West had the University’s that begin in the mid-evil ages. The original University’s that started where in Bolonia and Paris and their focus was mostly religious. They comprised of buildings and scholarly community which exchanged ideas but their fundamental focus was training for religious purposes. So, their Universities actually demonstrated that lay out. The lay out was mostly cloistered and monastic in their kind of ethos. As we – I am going to try and – so, here you see the University of Bolonia and some of the older Universities in Salamanca and Humboldt University as well in Berlin. If you look at the monastic layout of this and then compare it to the American examples, the early British American Universities, nine of them, which we now today call as the Ivy League. They were mostly on the East Coast of the United States and they initially started more organically. They converted buildings that were already in use and they were more of the Colonial flavor into University buildings and utilized them. Eventually, they came up with what is called the three- building quadrangular plan and the big difference between the European Universities and the American Universities was that they had now – first and for most, they were not that cloistered and monastic in their approach. More open representative of the University – of the culture over here and also, in terms of -- the focus, was no longer just religion, it had a more academic focus now. Going to the – so then look – we basically looked at the Universities as they started and the very first University that kind of came very intentionally with the purpose of academics being the main area of focus, was the University of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson. He again followed the same kind of u-shape quadrangular plan but there were many more styles introduced and he focused on the classical architecture. He introduced classical architecture to create that national movement and thereafter, the Chicago University, we looked at that as well, and that is kind of in the same kind of time period as Stanford. In fact, by the same architect and has a more gothic flavor. I want to just define the word style a little bit because it’s a little confusing. Style is more – it has three ways to look at it. One is that you can look at it as the way of construction. So, post and beam construction versus an arch construction. These are different ways that we constructed from antiquity and we continue to construct today. Then there is also how we ornament and the Baruch would be a good example of that. Where you apply ornament onto the building and that – therefore the name is given as Baruch. Then there is the – some styles are only referring to the historic periods, so like late Victorian would be an example of a historic period that we’re talking about. As you can, the collegiate architecture in America had a whole variety of styles and the word revival occurs pretty frequently because most of these were import. Adapted to the local climate and to the locally available material and the image that they were trying to impart. Therefore, they all had a kind of particular look and we studied those in order to kind of identify where Stanford fits in. Then coming to how we about identifying the themes. We have five themes here, starting from the (inaudible) campuses, late Victorian, arts, and crafts, romance of the West and regional modernism. On the left-hand side, you see the periods of significances of each of these themes and they’re in increments of about 25-years City of Palo Alto Page 4 each. On the right-hand side, you will see the tiles that I identify with this theme and you will see that there are subcategories of each style in these themes. That helps us identify the character defining features of each of those styles. Then I will go briefly over all the campuses we studied and I – starting in these themes. So, Pioneering Campus, we have a few good examples of this. This is mostly in the second empire tradition and UC Berkeley and Mills College have good examples of these. The late Victorian I will cover more extensively when we go into Stanford because we have – there are very few examples. In fact, very – almost none in the Richardsonian Romanesque in the Bay Area and we do have some in the (inaudible)-Classical. Also, very prominently featured at Stanford and then we have the shingle style, which is represented by the Dominican University. Chair Bernstein: Sapna, all the slides that you are showing us, are they also in this book? Vice Chair Bower: They are. Ms. Marfatia: They are. Chair Bernstein: Ok, great, fantastic, thank you. Ms. Marfatia: I mean they are not in the slide form but yeah, the pictures are all derived from that book, yes. Chair Bernstein: Great. Wonderful, thank you. Ms. Marfatia: Then we come to the arts and crafts movement. The thing to kind of remember during the arts and crafts, this is post-earthquake in California and also the time of the first World War. So, this was a major influence in the way the architecture kind of came into being and a lot of the young architects had gone to Europe, gotten trained in Bozarth in Paris and they kind of imported that style; which was again, classical-revival in its flavor. There was a parallel movement going on in terms of arts and crafts. In contrast to the very formal and very kind of monumental ethos of the Bozarth, the arts and crafts was more handcrafted quality of the architecture. So, both of these things were going parallel in the University campuses at that point in time and we have good examples of both of them. In fact, Stanford University has one of the good examples of the arts and crafts movement as well. The big debate at this time, of course, was whether you recall historicism or you move forward in terms of the more modern architecture and we’ll talk again – we’ll touch on that when we come to the modern period. After that, came the – sorry. So, this was the -- sorry. Yeah, these were the two, the UC Berkeley for arts and crafts – I am sorry. The UC Berkeley for the Bozarth and the French House as Stanford for the arts and crafts. Then going to the romance of the West, which is 1925 to 1949, this was a period mostly influenced by the expositions. Where San Francisco and San Diego both held major expositions and there was a revival movement of getting the Spanish architecture into the fore front; Spanish and Mexican architecture in the forefront. So those two were – we have a lot of examples on campus and we have a lot of examples in the Bay Area of this particular style. Then we come to the regional modern period, which is 1950 and 1974 and this a very interesting period. The Bauhaus School of Art in Germany took over from the Bozarth School in Paris and so a lot of the architects were trained in Germany at this point in time because of the war, some of them even moved to the United States. They had a major influence in the way the architecture represented itself. Additionally, now, the new world kind of had more confidence, America wanted to portray a certain kind of clarity in their architecture and their overall look. So, there’s – the architecture turned more officiant, less ornamentation and very, very streamlined design. We have three kinds of period – styles represented in terms of brutalist, mid-century modern and the regional – the Bay tradition or the Bay tradition architecture. Which was a regional response to the modern movement. Now coming – having laid the foundation for the overall architecture in the Bay Area, we focused on Stanford and looked at the same five things in terms of the Stanford context. Starting with the Pioneering Campus, we have not second Bay – I mean the second empire architecture at Stanford and so that period did not make sense. There were some in the agriculture – you know we – Stanford has some agricultural buildings during this period and Laura will go over those. What we – we are exemplary of the late-Victorian style and the Richardsonian Romanesque with mission influence was – is City of Palo Alto Page 5 probably the most well-known iconic Stanford and very famous in terms of what we have in the Bay Area and is probably the only good example of this kind of style in the Bay Area. Going to the arts and crafts movement and romance of the West, both those were influenced by the Richardsonian Romanesque architecture that was already on campus. In fact, the Board of Trustees kind of mandated using the same style and therefore you will see some of the architecture kind of responsive to that. Then coming to the regional modernism, we have very few good examples of that because as you will see, Stanford tends to be more faithful to its original core in terms of the style and almost rejected I would say, the modern movement. So, going to the – way we went through this process, it’s a four-step process. We first identified important examples of each style with in the theme and period. Then we went through and identified the characteristic – character defining features of each style. Compared the Stanford examples to the regional examples. Assessed integrity and then determined eligibility. So, Criteria 1 and 2 was evaluated by Laura’s team and they kind of identified some of the significant events and significant people in this study that we have done. So, focusing on the late Victorian theme, the most important of course is the main quad. Though it is one property, it comprises of about 27 buildings and the – we have quite a few buildings that follow this style; including the old chemistry building and (inaudible). Which was mainly because of the romanistic arch, the buff colored walls and the red tile roofs. That became Stanford’s signature architecture and that’s what has become the signature architectural style as well. Then we have some examples of the neoclassical, where we have Cantor Art Center which was a replication of the Athens Museum in Greece and some examples of the shingle style as well. Moving onto the arts and crafts movement, this was mostly the post-earthquake. Stanford basically determined it wants to follow – kind of – state again, very true to its original core and so the new architects [Baquell] and Brown were designing the next genre of buildings and were very true to the kind of Romanesque arch. They were trained at the Bozarth School so they brought that influence to California and to Stanford. We have quite a bit of examples both in the Bozarth northern influence and the southern influence. Then we have some in the craftsmen variety as well. The big difference to note is that instead of the sandstone buildings of the main quad, now the prevalent material is stucco. Though there are slight variations in the style, the campus basically maintained a very, very cohesive character. The continuation of the architectural style and the color and the material palette, created this continuity over time. During the next period there was, as mentioned before, the exposition influence and so the Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival became the styles – preferred styles of this time and we have quite a bit of those. This is also the time when enrollment increased because it was post war. So, there were a lot of dormitory buildings and most of the buildings during this time are beautiful dormitories that are on Stanford campus. Next, we go to the modernism and like I mentioned earlier, the modern genre for buildings that we have are modern – it’s good to define modern at this point. As I said, it is kind of severe its relationship to the past and be of the current moment. We could not really let go of the architectural style that was very, very strong at Stanford. That includes the arch, the red color wall – the yellow walls and the red colored tile roofs and so even our modern buildings have that same flavor. Though the material has changes and there is concern that is very prevalent at this point in time, it still brings the arch and still brings the same elements forward. Especially modern kind of has a very streamlined look versus our buildings have a lot of arches and in some cases, false arches at Stanford. We do have very good second bay tradition architecture, which was a regional response and it was more kind of in the flavor of low line buildings. Not very monumental in their appearance but kind of sit into the context that is the woodsy context that it was meant to be and we have a very good example of that as well. I am going to turn this over now to Laura to talk about the non-collegiate properties that we have on campus. Chair Bernstein: Thank you. Ms. Jones: The non-collegiate properties were primarily agricultural buildings that pre-dated the founding of the University, like Leland Stanford’s red barn for example. What we used to evaluate these, because they still needed a context, was the Santa Clara County Historic Context Statement, which is very well developed for agriculture; which as well all know is really important in the County. We used the themes from the Santa Clara County Historic Context Statement to evaluate – to reevaluate – all of these buildings had been previously evaluated. The red barn is on the National Register but we placed them in this context and explained how they met that eligibility that’s on the DPR forms in the appendix. We City of Palo Alto Page 6 created a little mini context for our fire truck house. We couldn’t find any other colleges with fire truck houses, particularly with Victorian fire truck houses. So, Julie Cane and I did a little study of fire truck houses in the San Francisco Bay Area and there was in the pre-1906 period a type of fire truck house that was a wooden store front with just one little engine that came out of it. Communities that could avoid it did these in brick because it was fire proof but places that couldn’t, did them in wood. We actually believe that our fire truck house is the last wooden fire truck house in the Bay Area and we love it and we found it eligible for that reason. It turned out not to be – it’s not very fancy neo-classical architecture but it is a rare surviving example of its type. Hold on, I’m going the wrong way. In the end, we did succeed – we were – I’m sorry, we were a little bit late. We missed the application deadline because it turned out to be a very big effort. This took five of us over a year to do, 400 buildings are documented in the inventory section. The sheds are in a table, the tiny little utility buildings are in a table. All of the other major buildings have an inventory sheet that explains the determination of eligibility at the bottom. Then we found 82 historic buildings, which were recorded as 50 properties as many of them are building complexes like the quad. The quad is one property that have 27 parts to it. Just to bench mark here for a minute, UC Berkeley has 45, Mills I think had 29 historic buildings. We’re fairly confident that this is a rigorous and protective approach to our resources and that we didn’t miss anything. Then briefly – just briefly, our historic preservation programs, we do this in a very close partnership with Santa Clara County who provides the regulatory oversight for our Use Permit and our Compliance. There are community planned policies about historic preservation, just as your general plan – your Comprehensive Plan excuse me, has got these policies. Then our current General Use Permit conditions of approval require compliance with the Secretary of Interior Standards and we developed a mechanism with the County where that’s endorsed by a qualified professional architect. Sapna and her team do that and then if there is any questions about it, the County can hire a peer reviewer at our expense or refer it to the Historical Heritage Commission. We’ve been to the Commission a few times over the years and then the reason this works so well actually I have to say is because of Stanford – we plan all this in advance. We own a lot of buildings, we plan in advance. We have our own Planning Department and so with Dave Lenox and Sapna’s leadership, we’ve developed levels of service maintenance guide and all of our historic buildings are the highest level of service. That means all of – all maintenance projects are review by Sapna and her team. She develops historic design guidelines whenever a building is going to be altered. So, that by the time the County sees our project, it’s already been massaged into compliance with the Standards. The – Heritage Service, we provide research support largely for those efforts and the Campus Planning and Design in University Architect’s office are doing that work of making sure our projects stay in compliance with the Standards. Sapna and I also present out historic rehabilitation and restoration projects to the Stanford Historical Society Board for their comment; so, at the Board meetings. Sapna is doing that now because I am currently the President of the Historical Society and Sapna comes to our meetings and talks about what’s going on with our ongoing projects on campus. We think this is a terrific and successful partnership. Similar to the partnership that we have with our City properties with you. So, I think that’s it for the presentation and we’re available for any questions and Kavitha Kumar is here from the County if you have questions about that. If you want to know more about the General Use Permit application, [Catherine Pulter] is here so I am sure that we can cover pretty much anything that you might need to know. Thank you. Chair Bernstein: Thank you so much, both of you. We’ve been asked to provide comments for possible inclusion in the City’s comment letter on the draft Environmental Impact Report this fall. I’ll start with Board Member Bunnenberg. Board Member Bunnenberg: Yes, I have some question about the Herbert Hoover House, which has become the house for the President of Stanford, I believe. I am wondering would it be at all possible to list it as the Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover House because I think that it is very unique that the wife of the President of the United States participated materially according to Birge Clark and his father Arthur B. Clark. Maybe that contributes to it’s not quite fitting into any category in your whole list of what style it could be which was absolutely amazing but I feel that Lou Henry Hoover was a very significant person. Which is one of the Secretary of Interior Standards areas because not only has she accompanied him through his mining engineering work and all the other things that he did. She helped to bring, in fact, did bring, the girl scout movement to Palo Alto and to the surrounding areas. We do have the little tiny Girl City of Palo Alto Page 7 Scout House, which is now the Lou Henry Hoover Girl Scout House located there in the Lucie Stern Complex. Actually, nearest to the Children’s Library, that little corner. Is that a possibility that it could be called out in some special way to recognize her? Ms. Jones: The House is actually listed on the National Register and was listed by Dorthey [Regnory], whom some of you may have known, as the Lou Henry Hoover House. It’s outside – technically it’s outside of the study area because it’s in the facility subdivision, although I included it in the list of significant properties for association with Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover. Thank goodness, I didn’t actually have to tell you what style it is because -- I am glad I don’t have to do that. Board Member Bunnenberg: (Inaudible) Ms. Jones: I agree with you Beth that Lou Henry Hoover is worth honoring and I found her to be a significant person. So, I think we’ve taken care of Lou Henry Hoover and I’d love some time to get a chance to visit the Girl Scout House because I didn’t know that before. So, I’ll let you know and maybe we can come over and take a look. Thank you. Board Member Bunnenberg: Thank you. Chair Bernstein: Other Board Members? Board Member Makinen? Board Member Makinen: Yes, there was mention made of significant events in the report and I recall a – I don’t know exactly where it was but you mentioned the Klystron was one of the important developments and I – do you have a building associated with the Varian brothers and the Klystron work? Ms. Jones: Yes, that building is actually now the math corner of the main quad. So, the Physics Department was in that corner of the main quad that is closest to chemistry and the museum. In fact, the Klystron was built in the basement of that building. So, we found the invention of the Klystron to be a significant event and it’s associated with that building. The main quad is actually eligible under three Criteria, it’s eligible for its association with the Klystron, it was eligible for the opening day of Stanford University and its eligible for association with Leland Stanford Senior and Jane Stanford. So, yes, it is associated with that buildings. Board Member Makinen: I had another question here. In the federal world, they have something known as Criteria G, which is properties less than 50-years that are exceptional significance that may qualify. It occurs to me that such things as the guys who developed the search engines and things like that may – came out of Stanford, what are your thoughts on that? Ms. Jones: You know the Criteria Consideration G which is an association with people or events from less than 50-years ago, what it talks about in there is the standard that sufficient time much have passed to gain a scholarly perspective. For some things, it’s really hard to know when – if we’re – I mean we have this – I go to the Computer History Museum all the time. I love this stuff but how – at what point you know which of those inventions is the thing that changed the future? It all seems like change to us so that’s why there are the Exceptional Significant Criteria. We were looking, obviously at 400 buildings and the – and we took it to 1974 so we’re within the 50-year Category but yes, we did consider that. We know that Criteria. Board Member Makinen: Was there any evidence of work developed by the founder of Fairchild Semi- Conductors that participated at Stanford? Ms. Jones: There was – I didn’t find any evidence of that on the campus. There was a building in the Research Park near what’s now Miranda, that was actually redeveloped in the 1970s I believe. So, I think most of the early Fairchild work took place someplace else in Palo Alto. Chair Bernstein: Alright, other Board Members? Board – Vice Chair… City of Palo Alto Page 8 Board Member Makinen: I had one more... Chair Bernstein: … I’m sorry? Board Member Makinen: …question. I know on Frenchmans Road, I guess there’s a Frank Lloyd Wright House and is that out of your study area or could you consider… Ms. Jones: It’s out of our study area but the Hannah House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. When we talked about this sort of levels of service issues, we have special houses at Stanford, which are the Lou Henry Hoover House, the Meyer-Buck Estate and the Hannah House which are all very important historic homes. They have a maintenance project manager assigned to them and Sapna and I also oversee any alterations to those properties. Yeah, the Hannah House is very important to us. It’s outside of the study are but it’s fully protected. Board Member Makinen: Yeah, ok so that’s not within your area of study; significant but not within your area of study. Ms. Jones: Right. Board Member Makinen: Thank you. Ms. Jones: Thank you. Chair Bernstein: Vice Chair Bower. Vice Chair Bower: I’d like to say that this is an astounding piece of work, really. The amount of information that you’ve brought together in this is really impressive. I am hoping that there is an online access to this, somehow and maybe the City of Palo Alto could get a link on some place in the Historic Resources Board Area so you can go there. I am wondering Laura if – I think you mentioned 50 buildings had potential to be listed on the Historic Register. Is there a – how many of those are listed and is there a plan to have them listed? Ms. Jones: Well, there are 82 buildings, 50 properties. Vice Chair Bower: Oh, ok. Ms. Jones: About – I am going to give you a guess here. About 27 or 28 of them and you know if you count the main quad, which is 27 building, so about 50 of those are already listed so they are on the Santa Clara County Inventory. Some of them are on the California Register, some are on the National Register so they're – many of them are already list. Vice Chair Bower: Yeah, ok, great. It sounds like regardless of whether they are listed or not after you have done this research, they are going to be preserved. I wanted to make a comment about the presentation you made. I have, as everyone knows, lived here my entire life and I think that when I think about the Stanford architecture and the way in which it has progressed, that it couldn’t be a better example of compatibility and differentiation. Every new building – because it had to have certain characteristics, is compatible in materials and colors but of course, it’s differentiated as those design features progress. That tension that you mentioned between looking back historically when you propose an architectural approach to a building or do you – does an architect want to look forward? That’s the tension that we basically deal with on this Board all the time. A perfectly stated a phase I think of that tension so congratulations again, it’s really… Ms. Marfatia: Yeah and we grappled with this, especially because it – we’re the leading innovative institution on the West Coast and probably in America so it’s that tension that we also have to kind of City of Palo Alto Page 9 balance most of the time. Yeah, we’ve been very successful because our basic foundation was so strong and actually very flexible in terms of adapting itself to even the new kind of – if you go and see our McMurtry building, which is our probably most contemporary building at this point in time, it still has kind of – we like to use the word contextually. It has a contextual respectability to all its neighborhood. Vice Chair Bower: I also was thinking that it is interesting to me that the – if you look at the names of the buildings as they progress through the 100 and some odd years of Stanford’s history. That almost all the new buildings are either tech founders or tech companies. Ms. Marfatia: Right. Vice Chair Bower: It’s now instead of having the Lou Henry Hoover House, we have the Samsung building. Ms. Marfatia: Yeah, it’s – when I was doing research on this, I have to say that what I – the definition of an American campus is like a place apart and with a cohesive character so that the – we have a transient population of students. Every 4-years they leave so in order to identify and create an image in their mind, they are able to kind of identify to the strong space because it has such a strong image. Vice Chair Bower: Anyway, congratulations. Great document. Ms. Marfatia: Thank you. Chair Bernstein: Board Member Wimmer. Board Member Wimmer: I also wanted to echo Board Member Bower’s sentiment on what a wonderful piece of education and documentation and I really enjoyed reading it. I feel like I would like to continue reading it and I’ve really learned a lot from it. It would be great to see this become an actual book or a text book or something for the University and for other Universities and architecture students to learn from. I think it’s such a great resource and I also think – I don’t know, for me it seemed like it should have a subchapter that has the house – the professor’s residences because I know that – I know you mentioned that the few that are on the register but I think there are some other ones that are pretty significant in there. So, it would be neat to see some of that incorporated into it but I had one question in the – when – in your introduction, it says that you’re – the reason for the survey is to guide feature project permitting. I think that was – that might be the ultimate goal of this document is to guide and I just want to know if you could speak for a moment on what that might entail or what your thoughts on – is this to guide new proposed buildings or is this to guide alterations to these existing buildings? What was that all about? Ms. Jones: Well, the – under the existing Use Permit, we submit building evaluations project by project and so each project when it came forward, we – Sapna and I would work together with our offices to prepare an evaluation. You have all this uncertainty, is the building going to be eligible or not and what are the character defining features that need to be preserved? Although it was actually the County’s idea that we should prepare a comprehensive survey instead of doing these one by one. The – we had resisted this a little bit because it is so much work but we finally saw the advantage of doing it because we do plan ahead at Stanford. It’s sort of a 2 to 3-year capital planning cycle and we invest a lot of time and effort programming those buildings and hiring those architects and trying to fit modern programs into late Victorian buildings. So, we could really see the advantage of knowing not just – which are the truly California Register eligible buildings but what is it that embodies their eligibility? What are those features that tell you that building is Richardsonian Romanesque or tell you that building is neoclassical? So, that you can make sure those features get preserved in the project. This was really Sapna and her team’s idea, that you nest the Secretary of Interior compliance in the evaluation because that then – you give that DPR to the architect and to the programming team and you say these features have to be visible when you do this project. It has to still embody the feeling of a late Victorian building, certainly from the outside. Its other purpose is that the General Use Permit has an EIR, which studies potential City of Palo Alto Page 10 impacts to cultural resources and so our – this was our proposal about what those historic resources are. I did a separate piece about archeological sites and so the County’s EIR consultants are reviewing the survey to make sure that it’s adequate. I do believe they believe it’s adequate and it’s the framework for deciding what the mitigation measures and conditions of approval are going to be. I don’t expect them to be significantly different than the last set because we were pretty successful with that but it is – it will be – I am almost certain it will be referred to in the conditions of approval so it’s that document. The previous (inaudible) as I said, just required that there be an evaluation for each project. Now, the building evaluation is done and you’re evaluating the compliance with the Secretary of the Interior Standards. That’s – it will actually be a recorded and mentioned in the Use Permit and studied in the EIR. Chair Bernstein: Board Member Bunnenberg. Board Member Bunnenberg: Again, I would like to echo the absolute amazement and delight of the amount of effort that has gone into this. I do have the wondering as to whether – one question is whether any of these buildings have plaques or things that let the public know. As someone strolls through the campus, is there some mention or is one more sign too much? Also, to maybe to add to somebody’s work load, is there any consideration of studying the Stanford Industrial Park from a historic background because it was a very unique marriage of businesses and the people who were working on the forward-thinking technology. Ms. Jones: The first question, there are various plaques around the University. Our campus planning and design team had tried many different versions of this and you know our building occupants are very proud of their buildings and constantly want to put plaques on them and we don’t want too much of that. We do have an informational sign system that just went up for the Stanford 125th anniversary, so when you are walking on the campus, you’ll see a little podium sign that gives you historical information about buildings. That’s new and I have to say, I have – there are – a lot of buildings have history displays in their lobbies and I put forth a proposal on behalf of the Historical Society to assist more departments with that and with doing that in a more consistent and high design standard way. Obviously, we try to unify planning on our campus so we don’t want 60 different types of historical marker but we’d love to be able to share that history with the public. The – we talked about the Stanford Industrial Park the last time I was here and the – and what I had done is an overview of the development of the park. Certainly, I think it deserves more studying and I am not sure I am – that – I am not sure who’s going to do that because as you know, the Stanford University is the land owner but we don’t own most of those buildings. So, I am not sure exactly how an overall deeper study of the Research Park might take place. Chair Bernstein: Dr. Jones, the Stanford stadium built in 1921, that was demolished. Was that listed as a historic structure and then that was demolished or was it (inaudible)(crosstalk)… Ms. Jones: The 1921 stadium was not demolished. I know that this is complicated, I spent a lot of time on it when we did the stadium project. Chair Bernstein: Oh, I’m confused. Ms. Jones: So, the 1921 stadium is the earthen berm so it was a Roman style earthen berm stadium, like Yale Bowl and Harvard Bowl. It was the horseshoe shape that David Bower was just telling me he has a photo of that. Then when Pop Warrener came to be the football coach, he wanted more seats and they were filling that stadium. It was back in the old days and they could put 88,000 people in that stadium to watch a football game. So, they built a big wood seat structure and then built a face Roman Coliseum sort of stage set around to hide the back of the seats. Those – most of you are from Palo Alto, underneath that it was called the mineshaft. There was all this just wood and then there was this faux colonnade that wrapped the 19 – it’s a later – 1924 or 1926, something like that. So, we found that the faux Roman colonnade was not significant but that the original berm, planted by the McLaren brothers, was significant. So, when the new stadium was constructed, it was constructed inside the bowl so that the original 1921 stadium is still in there. So, when you go and you go up those concrete steps or you go through the tunnels that are called vomitories because that’s how Roman we are, the – all of that is – City of Palo Alto Page 11 and the planting of the berm was protected in that project. So, I know it’s hard to tell but all of us as locals will now remember. Especially – you know at ground level, if you’re out there in the picnic grove, you can’t see that big cement super structure in there. It is that 1921 Stadium… Chair Bernstein: Ok, thank you for explaining that. I appreciate that. Ms. Jones: …and I wanted to protect it so I kept it eligible. That might be a bit of a reach given its integrity but it really is still there. Chair Bernstein: Ok, I appreciate that very much. The other question I have is for Sapna. First off, let me say that by listening to your presentation, also Dr. Jones presentation, it seems like I just got through attending a 2-quarter historical class at Stanford University, all encompassed in 50-mintues. So, thank you so much, it’s fantastic. You mentioned the cohesive theme of arches, red tile roofs, and yellow colored stucco or stone. My observation when I start looking at the Packard building and then the Hewlett building through there, I guess I am not – my observations are – I am not seeing that consistent cohesive theme of arches on some of the new buildings. Even some of the bioscience buildings on Campus Drive there, you know there is some very noted architects have done this stuff. My observations say that you are losing that cohesive theme of new buildings but that’s just my observation. Ms. Marfatia: We are very mindful when we are within that core and we are kind of very consistent with our material pallet and I don’t know if you have seen the McMurtry building. Yeah so whenever it comes into the periphery or immediate neighborhood of a historic piece of architecture, we tend to make sure. Of course, the Hewlett Packard buildings were the two that kind of where the first two that moved out of the main quadrangle and was the new engineering piece. I don’t know if you recall, it was a much bigger piece. Now we have most of them gone and we have created the new quadrangle, which again recalls the original architecture. Nevertheless, it’s not in sand stone, it is in limestone now but it still the recall of the red roof, though it might not have tile all the way to the edge but it is the red roof, the beige colored walls and still it has that same arch. It’s a different arch, it is the segmental arch versus the more Romanesque arch but yeah, it still recalls. The new quadrangle still recalls that flavor. Chair Bernstein: It seems like that you are suggesting is that if I am using Board Member Makinen’s comment about the area of potential effect. Ms. Marfatia: Yes. Chair Bernstein: So, it sounds like if you’re near a significant historic zone, then that’s when these consistent features might be more – looked closely looked at. Ms. Marfatia: Right and especially in the medical area it’s kind of farther away from us. It's outside so to speak of the Campus Drive Loop but it still has the limestone walls. Chair Bernstein: Right, yeah. When a project is – an existing building is considered – applied to be demolished, what level of – you talked about levels of service, what level of protection would a designated historic structure have? Is it if the applicant wants to demolish it, is there any prohibition on demolition on any of these listed structures? Ms. Jones: The General Use Permit does not allow us to demolish these listed buildings. We would need to do a supplemental CEQA analysis. We have to apply for a permit and the County would then review alternatives to demolition. So, for all of these historic buildings, it would be supplement CEQA analysis in order to demolish them. I believe we did that exactly once under this Use Permit for [Insena Gem]. I would consider these buildings fairly well protected. Ms. Marfatia: The latest example we have of the [Old Camp] building. We had it [mock] ball for many, many years and probably many times it was discussed whether it should be demolished but everybody was committed to making sure that it was not demolished and now it’s just been reopened all restored. City of Palo Alto Page 12 Chair Bernstein: Ok, great, thank you for that. Alright, any comments that – oh yeah, Board Member -- Vice Chair Bower? Vice Chair Bower: I just want to make one final comment, when you read the City of Palo Alto’s response to this, I was saddened to see that the primary of that focus of that response is on traffic impact. Which sadly now controls almost all of our decisions because we’re so impacted. Obviously, all the rest of the work is important and traffic is very important. I am just recognizing the irony that is here you’ve brought this huge package of historic information to us and what the City’s focus has to be is on how any expansion of that affects traffic before we are totally grid locked here. Maybe Stanford can come up with a solution. Chair Bernstein: Board Member Kolher. Board Member Kolher: Just one last comment, having been on the Stanford campus for over 50-years, most of it on a bicycle as I remember when you could ride bicycles and be safe. Now I wouldn’t want to ride a bicycle but Stanford campus is part of my whole growing up. Riding my bikes over there all the time and taking my kids to the Stanford games and Mathew playing basketball over on the Stanford campus. It’s just – anyone that grows up I suppose in any college town, it has this kind of feeling but we’re really – Stanford has made what we are a good part of it because of Stanford being here. It’s an incredible -- not only buildings and everything but the people and everything here. It’s just an incredible thing that we all live in this area. That we should be very pleased about it, except for the traffic. I mean that’s – having – I use to ride my bike a lot but now I wouldn’t be caught dead on a bicycle. It’s so dangerous and I don’t know why anyone rides their bicycle. Anyway, I’m just very appreciative of this information. It’s really quite – and having worked on a few homes in the campus there, the home owners, the professors, and everyone are really extraordinary people as well. They – I remember working with one professor and his wish list was like a booklet. It was just amazing so I am very – just – it’s very fun to watch Stanford grow in a way but thanks for coming today. Chair Bernstein: Does staff have any suggestion for HRB comments to include, if there are any? Ms. Gitelman: Well, I think we have the time to give it a little more thought and I wanted to invite Board Members if you think of anything after this meeting and you want to send us an email, please feel free to do so. One of the questions that I think the staff will have is how the individual resources that have been identified relate to each other and to resources that might be outside the area that have been evaluated. For example, the Palm Drive and the gate, does that relate to the main quadrangle? Is that somehow relevant to this project that’s being evaluated in the EIR? We’ll have to think about things like that but if you think of anything else in your review of this material. I know it’s a fantastic body of information, please shoot us an email and we’ll do what we can to incorporate it in our letter. Chair Bernstein: Ok, thank you. Dr. Jones, the Stanford gate that Ms. Gitelman just referred to. Is that in this area of study? You know right – as soon as you leave University Avenue and start on Palm Drive. Ms. Jones: The Palm Drive gates are not because they are in campus open space… Chair Bernstein: I see. Ms. Jones: … and not development is allowed there but certainly, we’re very well aware of the gates. Sapna over saw a recent restoration and conservation project at the gates and we would hardly agree that they are a historic resource. They just – they’re not in the EIR because they are not a development zone. Chair Bernstein: Ok, yeah. Do they have any protection against demolition, those gates that you know of? City of Palo Alto Page 13 Ms. Jones: If we had – they would have to be evaluated as part of a permit. So, if we wanted to propose – somebody wants to widen Palm Drive to four lanes, please don’t but let’s imagine they did. Then that would be evaluated as part of the CEQA evaluation. I actually believe the City had them evaluated as part of some project 10 or 15-years ago. [Carey and Company] I believe evaluated them and found them potentially eligible for the California Register. I am not – I would chain myself to them, Martin. I know – Sapna and I would chain ourselves together to them. I think they are pretty safe. Ms. Marfatia: They are actually the third generation. The originals have fallen during the 1906 and we are constantly – we’ve done now over 5-years three restoration project over there. Making sure that they will not be kind of deteriorating because they are further out but they are not out of sight or out of mind for us. Chair Bernstein: Even the palm trees I think seem to be landscape significant. Ms. Marfatia: Right. Chair Bernstein: Thanks. Alright, any other comments before we continue? Board Member Makinen. Board Member Makinen: Thank you, Chair Bernstein. I was pleased to see that you did have several pages on the Fredrick Law Olmsted and his contributions to the historic landscapes. Which I think is a significant part of the historic character of the Stanford campus and I know there was quite a bit of tension between Olmsted and the Stanford’s. Between what Olmsted envisioned as the proper landscape for Stanford and what Mr. Stanford wanted. I was pleased to see that you had a section in there on page 44 and 45 and 46 that discussed that. Thank you. Chair Bernstein: Thank you. I think that concludes then this item. Action Items Chair Bernstein: Next is action items and I see none on the agenda. Approval of Minutes 3. Historic Resources Board Draft Minutes of June 22, 2017 Chair Bernstein: Next is approval of the minutes. We decided to review those at our next HRB meeting. Subcommittee Items Chair Bernstein: Subcommittee items, any subcommittee reports? Seeing none. Board Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Chair Bernstein: Next is Board Member questions, comments, and announcements. Any Board Members have – thank you, Dr. Jones, and – thank you. Yes, Board Member -- Vice Chair Bower. Vice Chair Bower: It’s a question to staff, in the downtown area there are several development signs up for adding antennas either Wi-Fi or cell antennas to light standards. I wonder if that’s coming before this Board on where they are being placed in basically opposite historic buildings? Ms. French: There’s no proposal to bring that to the HRB. Definitely as part of the review they include the staff and route the plans over to our historic team, which is Emily and I. So, we are aware of them and when it at all possible – for instance the Landing Chateau is a designated resource and they were putting a faux mailbox or something as part of the equipment. Anyways, that’s just an example of where we got City of Palo Alto Page 14 involved and said not here, put it somewhere else kind of things. So, we are having a look at those and when it does involve an actual historic resource and Emily can provide more details if you like but… Vice Chair Bower: So, the two buildings that I actually had thought about quite extensively, one is the Landing Chateau and the street light right in front of that entrance. You couldn’t get it closer there and I looked around and I am not sure how they sight these but – and that’s a difficult combination intersection. It’s unsettling to me that the other one is across the St. Thomas Aquinas Church, I think that’s the right name of the Church on Homer and Waverly. It’s across the street and unfortunately the way the lights standards are set up, it doesn’t matter which one you pick, it’s equally close. At least it’s not right in front of the church but whenever those can be moved, even one light standard away from those historic buildings, I think we ought to – I hope the staff will look at that. Chair Bernstein: Ok, the – I also handed out to Board Members and staff this newspaper article from June 29th. It’s talking about the ITT building in the Bay Lands here and what peaked my interested about the article was that the first paragraph it says, the site of a historic radio station that picked up signals of trouble before the attack on Pearl Harbor has been added to Palo Alto Bay Lands Nature Preserve, which could lead to it being demolished. What I would like to ask for a feature meeting at the HRB to maybe we can agendize this so we can discuss it further. Just so that we are on record if for any public records in the feature regarding – including City Council meetings, that at least there’s some HRB comment on record about the significance of a structure like this. Yeah? Vice Chair Bower: I was going to make a quick comment. I have visited that building with Phil Bobel whose one of the top people in Public Works, at his request to look at it from a historic stand point. While the building was vandalized and painted, almost all of the original architectural detailing, excuse me, is still existent and with paint and some protection from vandals. That building would look just as good as the Sea Scout building does today and it’s not in as bad shape as the Sea Scout building was. So, it’s not a demolition candidate in my opinion but I think Martin is right, we ought to have a hearing about that. Board Member Bunnenberg: I would definitely agree with that because I’ve walked around that area and it’s again, one of those events that was earth shaking because this station was not the one that carried information to the White House, as I understand about Pearl Harbor but was the one that sent the message back to ships both Navy and private vehicles to warn about this major emergency. Chair Bernstein: Good, any other Board Member questions, comments, and announcements? Ok, we are heading for adjournment, so after this meeting then there is a joint meeting with the HRB and ARB. I will be not participating in that as the project on Channing Avenue, I have an active project just two houses away so I’ll be turning over that portion of the meeting to Vice Chair Bower. Ok, any other items before we then adjourn the formal HRB meeting? Ok, we are adjourned. Thank you so much. Adjournment