UPDATE: Stegner Home Demolition Challenged by National Historic Organization

The impending demolition of the home and study once owned by Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer Wallace Stegner appears to be temporarily on hold until the Los Altos Hills planning department can determine how to respond to a letter challenging the demolition without an environmental impact report.

The town, reacting to a letter sent by the Western Regional Director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the appearance of its attorney Tuesday morning, continued a hearing on the new owner's permit to build a house on the property—which would mean demolishing the Stegner house and study.  

Citing relevant portions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the National Trust requested the town not issue a permit until an environmental impact review was conducted.

"We were alarmed to learn that the town is treating this project as categorically exempt from CEQA under Guideline Section 15303," wrote Anthea M. Hartig, from the trust's San Francisco office.

"We ask that the planning commission decline to consider the demolition of the home and study of this remarkable man pending a full CEQA review to consider feasible mitigation measures and alternatives to demolition."

Stegner wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Angle of Repose, and several others that won acclaim and inspired the reference to him as "dean of Western writers."

Hartig wrote: "The house and study figure into several of Wallace Stegner's books, including All the Little Live Things, A Field Guide to Western Birds, A Shooting Star, and Spectator Bird. The character Joe Allston, a retired literary agent and protagonist in several books, works daily in a study modeled after Stegner's, and both the fictional Joe and Wallace looked out onto the same Blue Oak, and tended to the property as careful stewards of home, hearth and land."

To underscore its seriousness, Brian Turner, regional attorney for the National Trust, appeared at the hearing to speak about the importance of CEQA, and "that environment includes historic resources" under the law. It became clear that "very few people had known this was happening," he said later.

"It's a small community and we don't fault them, but we wanted to add our voice to the debate," Turner said. The letter is contained on a pdf document above.

The commission continued the matter to an undetermined date so that town attorney would have time to give guidance.

In the meantime, those who have been trying to locate a new site for Stegner's study where the majority of his works were written, reacted to the development as a welcome pause that might give some breathing room to find a suitable location.

An ad-hoc coalition has been trying to figure out an appropriate site in the past two weeks, but has not succeeded yet, said Alice Sakamoto, a neighbor of the Stegner property, member of the Open Space Committee and one who has been keenly interested in preserving Stegner's study.

Les Earnest, another proponent of preserving the study, said he'd met last week with the board of Hidden Villa as a possible site. The organization evaluated the project as not well-aligned with its primary mission, and its president told Earnest that the property has limited suitable locations to place a building because of conservation easements and requirements that any structures that are added be at least 150 away from Adobe Creek. While possible, it may not be an easy thing, he concluded.

Earnest has also approached Stanford University President John Hennessey, who told Earnest he was assigning staff to look into it. Stegner taught creative writing at Stanford for decades, and it now awards Wallace Stegner Fellowships.

Lynn Stegner, the daughter-in-law of the writer, told Earnest that they would be coming to town from Vermont soon. He said he hoped they'd have something positive to report by then.

"I guess we are going to keep trying until we can't try anymore," Sakamoto said.