Palo Alto Historic Preservation Services

Palo Alto is a prominent city on the Peninsula between San Franciso and San José. Part college town, part executive suburb, and part high tech incubator, Palo Alto is a rarified enclave, with many architecturally distinctive homes lining the tree-lined streets of its older neighborhoods, including Professorville, Crescent Park, Old Palo Alto, and Midtown.

Since 2015, VerPlanck Historic Preservation Consulting has completed more than a dozen historic resource evaluations (HREs) and other projects in Palo Alto. In many cases, VerPlanck completed these HREs for owners who planned to put their property on the market, and who wanted to know if their property had any historical or architectural merit.

In 2019, VerPlanck nominated a small historic district in downtown Palo Alto to the National Register on behalf of the property owners. This district, the Tschokke Cottages Historic District, is Palo Alto’s fifth, and newest, National Register historic district.