Professorville

The town of Professorville is an historic town in Palo Alto that features homes built by the professors of Stanford University. The neighborhood is a reflection of how important the university and instructors at the university are to the area. Years ago when the university was starting to grow, the teachers at the school were leased land that they could build their homes on. Teachers who wanted to own their land instead of leasing it chose to build their homes in the area of Professorville, the closest land not owned by the Stanford family. Each home has a different sized lot, due to the eagerness of the developer to release the land. In many cases, the larger lots were sold off into smaller portions. Today, the average price of a home in Professorville, even of the one bedroom variety, is well over a million dollars. The homes were built in a variety of different styles. Many of them are Colonial Revival and American Craftsman, and the homes along Kingsley Avenue are mostly Dutch Colonials. While many who visit the area are fans of period architecture and enjoy seeing the structure of how the neighborhood developed, even those without an interest in these topics will be interested in the history of the area.