Santa Clara Governor's House

  

Governor's House
General information
Type	House
Architectural style	Mid-century modern
Location	Santa Clara, Santa Clara
Address	2000 Calle de Primavera
Construction started	1955
Completed	1956
Cost	28,900
Technical details
Floor count	1
Design and construction
Architect	Franklin Bourdet

The Santa Clara Governor's House, formerly Douglas House, is a house in San Jose, Santa Clara. Built from 1955 to 1956, it serves as the second and current gubernatorial residence for Santa Clara.

History

Old Governor's House

The old Governor's House was constructed South 2nd Street in San Jose in 1887-9, a fairly large Victorian mansion. It was remodeled in 1922, but to fairly poor standards in a measure to save costs. By the 1970s it was in need of significant restoration and city planners had determined the cost would be excessive when compared to the house's value and recommended it be sold or rebuilt, but tight funds saw that it was only quickly fixed to keep it going some time longer..

Douglas House

In 1953, British born Sierran politician Harry Douglas (1921-2004) bought a lot on Calle de Primavera to eventually build a house. He hired architect Franklin Bourdet to build a modern single-story house, but with a central courtyard to evoke historic Spanish colonial houses.

Use as an official residence

Douglas became governor of Santa Clara in 1971, and until the end of his term in 1975 he used that as his de-facto official residence. Upon leaving office, Douglas stated he would give the house to be used as a new governor's residence whenever his wife were to pass away for half the original value of the house.

Barbara Douglas died in 1988, whereupon the house was sold for $14,450. There was some outcry over abandoning the historic governor's house, but most voters rejected pumping money into it once they discovered the magnitude of the work and cost required to make it habitable. The house was renovated in 1989, whereupon the current governor moved in.