Behind the HP Garage: A Palo Alto House, Shed and the Evidence Used to Recreate 1939

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

The HP Garage is a familiar symbol of Silicon Valley, but its physical story includes more than a small workshop. The house, garage and shed on Addison Avenue provided an interconnected setting for living and early business activity.

The later rehabilitation is equally interesting. Preserving the site meant deciding which moment in its history to represent, what material could be retained and how new structural work could support an older appearance.

A residential property supplied several kinds of space

HP’s historical summary describes a house built around 1905, a twelve-by-eighteen-foot garage appearing on insurance maps by 1924, and a separate shed.

Dave and Lucile Packard occupied a ground-floor flat, while Bill Hewlett stayed in the shed. The garage became the workshop where early products, including the Model 200A audio oscillator, were developed. HP moved to larger premises in 1940.

The arrangement gives the site a particular domestic scale. A flat, an outbuilding and a modest garage supplied different functions within the same property. The later corporate story began within that compact physical setting. The interest lies in how those ordinary spaces worked together, as much as in the garage’s individual dimensions.

The rehabilitation selected a period within a longer building history

The state’s historic resource account describes extensive alterations to the residence before HP acquired the property in 2000. It identifies the 2005 work as returning the property to the appearance associated with Hewlett and Packard’s occupancy.

The state account also explains that missing features were recreated from documentary, physical and pictorial evidence.

That is an important distinction in architectural history. The earliest construction date does not automatically determine the moment a rehabilitation project seeks to represent. The significance of this property centers on a later, brief use within the life of an older house.

The building itself supplied clues

In its account of discoveries during the work, HP describes earlier stairs, windows, tile and wallpaper retained behind later construction. These concealed features helped clarify the previous arrangement.

The account includes marks on wallpaper that indicated the location of the kitchen stove used in finishing early oscillators. A small physical trace could therefore connect domestic space with the work carried out at the property.

For anyone interested in older homes, this is a revealing kind of evidence. A later wall surface may conceal an earlier opening; a surviving detail may help explain a room’s previous organization. A building’s history is not always fully visible in its most recent finish.

The familiar garage also received new support

The Hewlett-Packard Company Archives documents a steel substructure introduced during the garage work. Original boards and reclaimed material from a nearby old barn were used in rebuilding its enclosure.

That combination shows how historic appearance and structural intervention can coexist. Retaining recognizable material does not imply that every supporting component remains untouched.

HP’s dated construction gallery also records raising the house for foundation work and cataloging the clinker-brick chimney during dismantling. The project involved careful sequencing across the whole property.

A small place carries a much larger story

The interest of Addison Avenue lies partly in this contrast of scales. The site’s buildings are modest, while the history associated with their use became internationally significant. The preservation work makes that earlier setting understandable through material, form and the relationship of the structures.

Explore real estate and home for sale in Palo Alto. Contact Diamond to discuss homes with attention to the specific architectural and historical layers within the city’s neighborhoods.

Sources checked October 28, 2026. Rehabilitation details are attributed to the state record and HP’s archives; no private tour or new building inspection is claimed.