Los Altos Hills History Committee Scrambles for Plan for Stegner Studio

One way to save famous writer Wallace Stegner's writing studio from the wrecking ball would be to move it, concluded the Los Altos Hills History Committee Tuesday.

"We want to work with the town and the owner and all the people who care about this building," said Nobuko Cleary, chairwoman of the history committee. She had been traveling in Boston when she heard that the current owners' plans for the property include demolishing the house, where the Pulitzer-prize-winning author lived for 50 years, and the studio in which he wrote many of his major works.  

"We don't want to frustrate the new owner from building his home," said committee member Bill Downey. But they had to act quickly in coming up with a plan, because it typically takes about two months from the time a building permit is issued to demolition.

The committee did not vote on a resolution to designate the house or the studio a historic structure. "This is Stage One, discuss how we can save it," said Cleary. "People started calling us. Stegner was revered here."

During that time, the committee has to work through town regulations and find a suitable place to put the studio, where works such as the Angle of Repose, All the Little Live Things and Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, were written. 

The town itself has about 25 parcels small and large, from Rhus Ridge to the Westwind Barn, Downey said. Some have even suggested Hidden Villa, where Stegner often dined with Frank and Josephine Duveneck and founded conservation groups with them.

Accompanied by town staff, Cleary, with committee members Downey and Les Earnest, drove up to the home, now owned by Yew Nam and Wan Lei Yong. They wanted to explore whether the studio, roughly estimated to be about 600 square feet, might be moved once the house in front of it is razed.

The house, up a steep and narrow private road, is flanked by homes both modest and grand. Earlier in the day, Cleary and Mayor Ginger Summit had mistakenly examined another small cottage on a lower part of the property.

Alice Sakamoto, a member of the Open Space Committee and a neighbor of Stegner's for more than 30 years, said Stegner had often rented out that cottage to Stanford University students.