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Overview

A rare example of George Washington Smith's Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture in Northern CA, Perce (1879-1961) amd Laura Mitchell Doe Pettigrew (1887-1957) resided in this residence from 1925 until his death in 1961. (See Palo Alto City Directory, 1961, p. 347.) The Pettigrew House was designed to maximize privacy from the street. Its L-shape had a very closed fenestration facing Cowper Street and very open arrangement of windows and doors leading out to its sheltered patio in back. Its design reflected the suburban dweller's increasing desire for relief from autombile noise from the street and from the streeses of urban working existence, in general.

Building Notes

The Pettigrew House was placed on National Register of Historic Places: 11/25/1980; it was an unusually fine example of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style in Palo Alto, done by one of the leading practitioners in the style; there were less than a dozen houses designed by Smith north of Santa Barbara; Perce L. Pettigrew was a local businessman.