My application to place Seven Springs Ranch in Cupertino on the National Register of Historic Places was considered by the Keeper on March 29, 2011. The Keeper made a determination of eligibility, although did not formally list the property due to a protest by a bank in Kansas City, Missouri, who also claimed to be the owner in fee.  The Keeper forwarded the determination to Milford Wayne Donaldson, California State Preservation Officer, who then listed the property on the California Register of Historical Resources, pursuant to Section 4851(a)92) of the California Code of Regulations.

We prepared the nomination last summer for Grant Lyddon, grandson of industrialist Grant Stauffer. Grant and Gladys Stauffer bought the ranch, founded in 1866 by John Bubb, in 1936, and built the distinctive Spanish Eclectic house designed by local architect Ralph Wyckoff that still exists in its unaltered form. The findings of the Keeper are as follows:

“The Seven Springs Ranch is locally significant under National Register Criteria A and C in the areas of Agriculture, Exploration/Settlement and Architecture. Located in the now highly urbanized “Silicon Valley” area, the 37-acre Seven Springs Ranch property represents one of the last remaining agricultural settings able to convey the broad patterns of late nineteenth and early twentieth century agricultural development in the western Santa Clara valley. The northern California agricultural estate contains resources illustrating the early American-era agricultural period, the early twentieth-century experimental ranch efforts of William Radford, and the Stauffer estate ranching contributions. The resulting complex illustrates a broad array of ranch-related architectural facilities and conveys the historic evolution of historic period ranch design.”

Stauffer House at Seven Springs Ranch