The Historic Teardown Syndrome

"It is a 14-bedroom, 13-bath, stucco-walled, neo-colonial mansion designed by George Washington Smith -- the architect who helped create the look of the beautiful city-by-the-sea, Santa Barbara, California... Preservationists call the home historic and important. Jobs, who bought the house about 20 years ago, has been trying to knock it down since 2001."

"In 2002, a modernist $2.45 million Palm Springs masterpiece by architect Richard Neutra, the Maslon House in Rancho Mirage, was destroyed less than 30 days after new owners took title."