Steve Jobs can finally build his dream home; the Woodside City Council approved plans to dismember the mansion he owns and detests. But the Apple CEO must give the pieces to someone who knows from good architecture. Oh, snap!

Jobs has called his 30-room hacienda "one of the biggest abominations of a house I've ever seen." But Gordon Smythe, founder of Propel Partners, is a fan of the house's architect, George Washington Smith, and will elsewhere reassemble the structure, minus an addition added to the structure after it was built.

Maybe Smythe knows what he's talking about: his firm invests in both technology and real estate, and local preservationists say he's acquiring a national treasure.

Jobs, whose computer products tend toward clean, elegant lines, is planning a smaller house, which may or may not replace his existing Palo Alto estate. Given Jobs' notoriously obsessive approach to design, we do not envy his contractors.

(Pic: Jonathan Haeber)

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