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ANNC: Rescuing the house where VN lived in Palo Alto, CA
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Dear List,
No one has responded to the June 4 post (a query sent to Juan Martinez, which he forwarded to the List) about rescuing the house in Palo Alto, CA, where Nabokov and his family spent the summer of 1941 while he taught at Stanford University. Apparently, the house was recently sold to new owners who plan to tear it down.
Is anyone interested in volunteering to try to help save this house? It would probably require asking for support from various institutions -- the Nabokov Society, the Stanford University English Department, any local neighborhood associations or historic preservation societies in California, and so forth -- and seeking press coverage. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to proceed?
In VNAY, Brian Boyd describes the house as follows: "The Nabokov rented a neat little house, a trim Riviera villa, at 230 Sequoia Avenue, just across El Camino Real from the Stanford campus: a sequoia in their own front garden, but no phone and no car" (p. 29). [See attached photos.] The house is especially significant because it was the first of many houses that the Nabokovs rented in America after arriving in that country in 1940 -- they never owned a home -- and because Nabokov lived there at the beginning of his teaching career in the United States. Dmitri Nabokov recently remarked that "among my childhood memories of America, this house and the life I led there figure prominently and fill me with affection. My father's particular happiness at that time was, I think, contagious."
Sincerely,
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
No one has responded to the June 4 post (a query sent to Juan Martinez, which he forwarded to the List) about rescuing the house in Palo Alto, CA, where Nabokov and his family spent the summer of 1941 while he taught at Stanford University. Apparently, the house was recently sold to new owners who plan to tear it down.
Is anyone interested in volunteering to try to help save this house? It would probably require asking for support from various institutions -- the Nabokov Society, the Stanford University English Department, any local neighborhood associations or historic preservation societies in California, and so forth -- and seeking press coverage. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to proceed?
In VNAY, Brian Boyd describes the house as follows: "The Nabokov rented a neat little house, a trim Riviera villa, at 230 Sequoia Avenue, just across El Camino Real from the Stanford campus: a sequoia in their own front garden, but no phone and no car" (p. 29). [See attached photos.] The house is especially significant because it was the first of many houses that the Nabokovs rented in America after arriving in that country in 1940 -- they never owned a home -- and because Nabokov lived there at the beginning of his teaching career in the United States. Dmitri Nabokov recently remarked that "among my childhood memories of America, this house and the life I led there figure prominently and fill me with affection. My father's particular happiness at that time was, I think, contagious."
Sincerely,
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
