This should be a fun job. . . .

Steve Jobs' Woodside house gets short reprieve

The Woodside City Council delayed a decision to let Apple CEO Steve Jobs demolish a historically significant house after several hours of debate.

The Jackling House: Steve Jobs wants it torn down while preservationists argue it should be restored.

The decision was supposed to come down late Tuesday night, when Jobs' "team" of representatives butted heads with some scrappy preservationists over the fate of the Jackling house, a massive mansion in the hills of Woodside. Team Jobs argued that the preservationists "fill [the] room with righteous bombast" but have done nothing to get the house registered as a historical building. The preservationists suggested that Jobs wasn't acting in good faith, and that if he sincerely wanted to save the house and have it relocated, he would have agreed to mediation, according to an Almanac News report. The upshot? The hearing will be continued on May 12, the next scheduled city council meeting.

No doubt, Jobs likes a good fight. A man reportedly worth $5.7 billion can afford to throw down $18 million $13 million to have the house restored or $5 million to have it relocated. At this point, he's probably already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees on the house, given that this saga has dragged on since 2001. But this clearly isn't about money -- we suspect there's got to be some ego involved here. It's more than likely that Jobs, who has been called the most powerful man in business, just does not want to be told what he can and cannot do on a piece of property that he owns.

UPDATE: Brian Turner, a Law Fellow at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, tells us that one reason why the house is not registered as a historical resource is because Jobs wanted it that way. "When the issue of the Jackling House's historical significance first came up, the Woodside planning department received advice from two independent experts claiming that it qualifies for the California Register and considered it an eligible resource. Jobs appealed this decision to the planning commission," Turner wrote us by email. A house "may not be listed on the California Register if the owner objects. The Jackling House is widely considered to be 'eligible' for the California Register. This has not been a disputed issue."