November 2005

Biz Hill Part of GSB History

Built in the 1920s for the faculty of the new Business School, the homes on El Escarpado Way are enjoying renewed fame with the recent publication of Historical Houses III by the Stanford Historical Society. Worth multiple millions now, these English Tudor–style homes on what was known as “Biz Hill” were built with spacious reception halls and rooms for entertaining.

J. Hugh Jackson, an accounting professor, had one built in 1926 for $28,000. Another housed the family of Eliot Grinnell Mears, a professor of geography and international trade at the new school. Mears’ daughters Dorothy Allen, 85, and Helen Gibson, 89, whose late husband (Weldon B. “Hoot” Gibson, MBA ’40) headed the Stanford Research Institute, opened the home’s doors to 450 sightseers in May. “My father would have enjoyed this,” Gibson said. “People are thanking me, but I thank them. I feel so famous.” (Another recent book by the Historical Society, Stanford Street Names, informs that Mears Court on campus was named for her father.)

Jackson later became dean of the Business School, and the library was named for him upon his retirement. That seems appropriate given that his home, now owned by an engineering professor, had card catalog drawers for his personal library built into the walls.

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