Palo Alto highlight
Historic downtown
University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto features the 1941 Streamline Moderne train station and the 1929 Hotel President, landmarks from the city's mid-century identity.
The Southern Pacific Railroad designed Palo Alto's station in Streamline Moderne, a style that reflected the era's optimism about machines and motion. The new depot opened on March 8, 1941, celebrated with a grand parade of 2,000 people, 400 horses, and a 40-by-75-foot flag down University Avenue. The station was restored in 1981 and again in 2000, preserving its classic seating and lighting while adapting to contemporary use.
The Hotel President, built in 1929 on University Avenue, reflected Palo Alto's civic pride when Herbert Hoover, the former U.S. president who had lived in Palo Alto, took office. The Stanford Theatre, opened in 1925 and beautifully restored, stands at 221 University Avenue. Palo Alto's four historic districts are listed in the National Register, and the city's Planning and Development Services maintain active historic preservation programs that protect these buildings and the neighborhoods they anchor.
Long-term residents in Palo Alto's historic neighborhoods have often spent decades in the same home, raising families and building roots. Protecting a mortgage, children's education, and a spouse's income during the working years is a way of honoring that commitment to place and people. Term insurance that covers the gap between what your family has and what it would need keeps that promise practical.