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there, and I liked the big lots, although Jean was concerned about living
close to Gord from the perspective of comparing the families, given
that Gord was making substantially more money. I drove down Happy
Valley Road where a new street met it. The new street was named Palo
Alto Drive and a board was posted showing the location of the various
lots for sale. Jean and I liked Lot 6. It was wedge-shaped, with a very
wide frontage and was about ¾ acre in size. The lot had a gentle slope to
the street in the front half. The back half sloped up a hill with a natural
bench partway up. I took a shovel and dug down about two feet deep
in several locations in the lot. The soil was the same all the way down
(I was later told by a geologist that the lot is on an alluvial fan that had
been gradually washed down the hill for centuries). The upper half of
the lot was covered in poison oak about eight feet high. There was a
large oak tree high on the hill on either side at the back. Jean liked the
lot as well. It had an attractive view to the hills on the opposite side of
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I talked to Mr. Spear and bought Lot 6, which became our home at 3841
Palo Alto Drive. The lot cost $12,500. The best loan I could get was
at 6 percent interest. Because I wanted to be mortgage-free after retire-
ment (which I anticipated to be at age 65), I took a 25-year mortgage,
though mortgages at that time were typically 30 years in duration. Our
mortgage for $25,000 cost $161.10 per month.

In the spring of 1960, Jean and I had been guests at a party at
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from what we wanted for ourselves, we were well impressed. We con-
tacted the architect, Ken Cardwell, who was a Professor at the Univer-
sity of California Berkeley Department of Architecture. We hired him
and began working with him on our home design. Jean had majored in
textiles in college and had done a great deal of tailoring and dressmak-
ing subsequently. We found she had a natural aptitude for design work.
She could read blueprints with no problem whatever. Indeed, I felt that
she could have easily become an architect or an engineer. We wanted a
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We wanted to enjoy the California climate by bringing the indoors and

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