In 1947, the DeVries family bought this elegant house that is
opposite the Senior
Center on Main Street. It is in the prairie style design first made
popular by Frank
Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1915 by Milpitas' second doctor,
Dr. Renselaer
J. Smith, to serve as his office and home. For many years the lot to
the south of
the main house was the location of a fresh produce stand operated by
Dr. Smith's
son. The Smith family sold the mansion and property to the de Vries
family in the
late 1940s. The city acquired the property in 1995 from the de Vries
family for $2.5 million. The
process for listing of the mansion on the National Register of Historic
Places was begun but never completed.
Today the house has been relocated to the southeast corner of the
original property. It has been adaptively reused as the
management office of the senior citizen housing development that
occupies the property once owned by Milpitas' second doctor.
There are also three or four apartments for residents located in the
upstairs.
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