Professorville Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Sun-bonnet House at 1061 Bryant St.
Professorville Historic District Show map of San Francisco Bay Area Professorville Historic District Show map of California Professorville Historic District Show map of the United States
Location	Roughly bounded by Embarcadero Rd., Addison Ave., Emerson and Cowper Sts. Palo Alto, California
Coordinates	37°26′30″N 122°09′15″W / 37.4416057°N 122.1541309°W / 37.4416057; -122.1541309[1]
Area	34.4 acres (13.9 ha)
Built	1895 (1895)
Architect	Bernard Maybeck
Architectural style	Colonial Revival, Craftsman bungalow
NRHP reference No.	80000861[2]
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 Waverley. 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.^[3]

Origins

The Professorville Historic District reflects the area's origins and its early years related 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. Professorville was the closest place to the campus and downtown Palo Alto that was not owned by Stanford. Professors who preferred to own their own land rather than lease it from the Stanfords built their homes there.^[4] Lot sizes 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 off portions of their property, starting at the outer edges, until the original buildings themselves were on a modest sized remaining lot.^[3] In February 2023, the median list price for houses in Professorville was $4.34 million.^[5]

Architecture

The buildings most representative of Professorville are brown-shingled houses with gambrel roofs, whose stylistic influences range from Colonial Revival to American Craftsman. Dutch Colonials are the predominant architecture on three blocks of Kingsley Avenue.

One of the largest residences, a 3-story, 14-room frame house at 450 Kingsley, is the former home of Stanford's first physics professor, Fernando Sanford^[6] designed by architect Frank McMurray of Chicago. The house includes features fashionable at the time such as a Queen Anne corner tower and a Palladian window in front.

Other former professors' houses include 1005 Bryant, built for professor Frank Angell who founded the university's psychology department,^[7] and 433 Melville, built for professor Charles Henry Gilbert, founding chair of the Zoology Department, and designed by Professor Arthur Bridgman Clark, an architect and art professor.^[8][9] The "Dead Houses" (named after the Grateful Dead) is a cooperative housing community centered in Professorville, primarily inhabited by Stanford students and recent graduates, with notable past tenants including Sean Parker.^[10]

See also

• Ramona Street Architectural District

Footnotes

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.

References

• "Professorville Historic District". California's Historic Silicon Valley. National Park Service. Retrieved March 14, 2007.

External links

• Professorville, Palo Alto
• Professorville Faculty have left, history remains in this island of tradition
• Professorville Historic Tour, Palo Alto Historical Association, Available at the Palo Alto Main Library
• Professorville, Palo Alto - Neighborhood Tour