Support Sunset Magazine Headquarters’ Nomination for Listing in the National Register of Historic Places
The California State Historical Resources Commission (SHRC) will soon consider a nomination for listing the threatened Modernist Sunset Magazine Headquarters in the National Register of Historic Places and advocates are encouraging the public to submit letters of support. The seven-acre site in Menlo Park, CA, was first enrolled in The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) Landslide program as an at-risk landscape in March 2024. Since then, the threat to the site has become dire. Real estate developer, N17 Development, seeks to raze the site’s iconic California Ranch-style office building (designed by architect Cliff May), and Modernist landscape (designed by landscape architect Thomas Church) to erect a complex of towers ranging in height from 301 to 401 feet tall. If built, the towers would not only dominate views from the surrounding Menlo Park and Palo Alto neighborhoods, characterized by low (one-and two-story) structures, but as TCLF President Charles A. Birnbaum has previously stated such a massive construction project would obliterate a “campus [that] is as significant and worthy of protection and designation as Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was conceived as Frank Lloyd Wright’s desert laboratory, and the Los Angeles home of Charles and Ray Eames. . . .[and] the only difference between those tastemaking properties is that the latter two are recognized as National Historic Landmarks.”
As of November 14, 2024, the city is reviewing the project “for consistency with applicable development standards” and has begun the “environmental review process pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).”
The site was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in December 2024. As reported by the Palo Alto Daily Post, “if a property is listed on the California register, or found to be eligible for listing, it is considered a historic resource under the California Environmental Quality Act” and the developer “would then have to address any impacts to the resource resulting from a proposed project.”
The nomination, prepared by Los Angeles based historic preservation consultants, Chattel, Inc., states that the property is “eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the state level of significance under Criterion A in the area of Commerce for its association with Sunset Magazine… and under Criterion C in the areas of Architecture and Landscape Architecture as a prominent and first example of the California Ranch architectural style being applied by master designer Cliff May to a commercial office building and as a prominent example of a planned landscape by master landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church.” The nomination features several historic and contemporary photographs, and figures, including an annotated aerial map (below) that illustrates the evolution of the headquarters' building from 1951 to the mid-1980s.
The SHRC is scheduled to consider the nomination on May 9, 2025 and invites the public to comment on the nomination either in writing or at the scheduled public meeting.
What You Can Do to Help
Provide a letter of support to list the property on the National Register of Historic Places. Comments and letters must be received by 9:00 AM on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, to be presented at the meeting. If sending electronically, include the name of the nomination (Sunset Magazine Headquarters) and the hearing date (February 7, 2025) in the email's subject line.
State Historical Resources Commission
P.O. Box 942896
Sacramento, CA 94296-0001
