Save Pulitzer prize winner Wallace Stegner’s real estate?

Historical building preservation. It’s a complex issue fraught with strong emotions pro and con.

Case in point:

Wallace Stegner, terrific writer of fiction and non-fiction, author of Angle of Repose and The Big Rock Candy Mountain, died several years ago leaving his home and studio in Los Altos Hills, CA. He built the Eichler style studio doing most of the carpentry himself. He wrote many of his major books there.

Stegner’s heirs wanted to preserve the building for posterity. However, there is no ordinance for historical preservation in Los Altos Hills and the new owners want to tear it down.

Ultimately, the structure is probably doomed.

Lee Earnest, a member of the City Council trying to save the building, suggested that Stegner probably wouldn’t have approved of all the fuss. “He tried to maintain a level of anonymity which he did very successfully. I know he didn’t like the town much. We wanted to name a path for him and he said no.”