I've walked past that house so many times. It seems so out of place downtown between a realtor's office and a restaurant. I used to call it the holdout house. It's a tenacious survivor of a time long gone. Somehow this house has survived the growing of a bustling town all around it. I don't know who built it, but as a kid I wondered if it was haunted. Today at age 31 I bravely went inside disquising myself with a bunch of realtors to solve the mystery of the holdout house. The listing agent had no details for me about the history. I can tell you that although it's a cool historical house it will most likely be torn down to build an office building, or perhaps a Starbucks. There are cool treasres in there though. A Palo Alto historian would love to spend time admiring the floors, plaster walls, and glass doorknobs. I thought perhaps it was once a boarding house, it has that feeling. I wonder who stayed there 100 years ago? When I was inside looking at the clawfoot tub and the marble sink I realized that there just wasn't anything like it in Palo Alto. We are the town of the future, not the past. Still, it was hard not to imagine petticoats in the closets and wonder if Leland Stanford or David Starr Jordan ever went inside. The house is like a time capsule. It's in terrible shape. The plaster is cracked and falling off the walls in places. The listing agent placed hard hats in the foyer for the feint of heart, but nobody seemed to wear them. Clearly the roof needs to be replaced and the plumbing and... well, everything else. Still, it's hard for me not to repect the staying power that kept it there even during the internet craze when the downtown land could have been sold for a fortune. There is a part of me that would love to restore it. Perhaps Palo Alto could use a charming B&B or tea room. Who am I kidding? It's going to be a cube shaped steel and glass office building with T1 connections in every room. Nobody cares about the holdout house, most probably think it's an eyesore, and probably haunted.