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Apple to preserve historic Glendenning Barn on site of futuristic ‘spaceship’ campus

Apple has always attempted to respect historic landmarks in planning its various real estate expansions, and as the San Jose Mercury News reported today, two buildings with a full century of history between them will coexist as the company continues its trend by preserving a 100-year-old barn to remain on the campus of its new headquarters.

The Glendenning Barn was built in 1916, exactly 100 years before construction on Apple’s new facility is expected to be completed. It was carefully disassembled by construction crews to ensure that it wouldn’t be damaged as the new campus was being built, with every individual piece being numbered and preserved so that the barn can be rebuilt exactly the way it was once construction is finished.

Before becoming the site of Apple’s new HQ, the land was simply an apricot farm owned by several generations of the Glendenning family. The family eventually pooled resources with several other nearby landowners and sold the land to one of the first major Silicon Valley tech firms, Varian Associates. From the 1970s on it was used by HP, until the campus was closed in 2010 and sold to Apple.

Apple plans to use the barn to store the equipment that will be used in maintaining the facility’s landscaping as well as sporting equipment.

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Comments

  1. silas681- - 9 years ago

    I guess a 100 year old building is considered to be ‘very old’ in the states?

    • garytreible - 9 years ago

      I think it would be considered old in California. In Pennsylvania, old barns were built in the 1700’s or earlier. I also know that would be ‘new’ in Europe.

      • driverbenji - 9 years ago

        yeah, pretty much anything west of the Mississippi is 100 years newer, lol.

        I think it’s a little silly to preserve this, being only 100 years old, and just a friggin’ barn, something that was built to hold animals and not really so useful anymore, as the people that built and used it are no longer there, but, whatever, I guess some people won’t get all mad about it being torn down.

      • dckirker - 9 years ago

        This response is more towards @driverbenji

        It is the history of the area that makes this site kind of important. Before Silicon Valley was Silicon Valley it was the Valley of Heart’s Delight. The industry: agriculture and farming. I think it is great that they are making an effort to preserve it AND use it to store gardening equipment for the property. So, I guess it is still useful, and even for the same purpose that it was 100 years ago. :)

    • mrandrewfox - 9 years ago

      My local pub and church are just coming up to 1,000 years old (12th Century). My house is 350 years old. I’ve got trees in my garden older than that barn.

  2. Taste_of_Apple - 9 years ago

    Nice of them.

  3. johannwerner1860 - 9 years ago

    What is so special about the barn?

  4. @driverbenji – it’s all relative and I guess with your view (“it’s only 100 years old…) there would never be any historic buildings in existence in the “newer” parts of the world.

  5. André Hedegaard - 9 years ago

    My house is built in 1876. Yeah its old, but its still a good house. I guess an American visiting me here, would consider it “old and antique”.

  6. Bob Foster - 9 years ago

    Well… the way I read it, this is an article about something inside the U.S., and not in Europe. So what’s “historic” for the U.S. is still valid. I lived in Germany for five years, and while I do agree that 100 years is a speck of time compared to Europe, I do appreciate that some things we consider “old” is preserved. That barn will be a nice contrast to the futuristic Apple headquarters when it’s finished.

    You’re comment does come across as snobbish. What Europeans think of us Americans preserving our “old” stuff is something I couldn’t give one rat’s a$$ about.
    Not so bad…