San José City Landmarks

This one-story single-family residence at 285 South Twelfth Street in the Naglee Park neighborhood of San José is a Craftsman-style home designed in 1907 by the locally prominent architect Wesley Warren Hastings. Such character defining features as deep overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails and knee braces, an overhanging front gable above a broad bay window, and a side porch with battered columns, create a distinctive representation of early twentieth century residential Craftsman design. Built in 1907 for local automobile dealer Louis Normandin and his new bride Estelle Pinard, who lived there for thirteen years, and owned for over forty years by the Rees family, farmers from Ohio, the house has changed little on the exterior and has maintained its integrity these last 114 years. 

It is now more commonly known as the house in which the world renowned rock-and-roll band the Doobie Brothers got its start, when Doobie Brothers founder Tom Johnston rented and lived in the house from 1969 to 1973. Johnson wrote many of the Doobie Brothers’ best-known songs during this era, including “Listen to the Music '' and “China Grove,” and the house was notable as a center of a burgeoning music scene in San José. The Doobie Brothers released three albums, two of them platinum-selling, while Johnston was a tenant at the house.

–Adapted from 2021 DPR form, Krista Van Laan, author