In the midst of the tech stock meltdown, some Silicon Valley stalwarts apparently remain so wealthy they can continue to spend as if the Nasdaq were still on fire.
Witness Wilf Corrigan, 62-year-old CEO of LSI Logic Corp. and co-founder of one of Silicon Valley’s pioneering semiconductor makers, Fairchild Camera and Instrument.
By April, Corrigan and his wife, Sigrun, plan to break ground on what will be one of the largest houses in Santa Clara County, with 19,887 square feet of floor space.
Within the stucco and stonework exterior of the two-building, earth-tone, Mediterranean estate will be six bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, two wine cellars, a huge wine-tasting room, two dining rooms, a library, an elevator, a sauna and a media/game room with wet bar looking out onto a 4,500-square-foot courtyard graced by a splashy fountain. Not to mention his-and-hers offices.
The Corrigans are not alone in their confidence to weather the economic slowdown. Los Altos Hills planners recently received an application for another home almost as big. And the affluent city’s planning department is still so busy that the city recently hired outside help to deal with the load.
Sigrun Corrigan said she and her husband are not deterred by the latest tech speed bump. Not after spending 30 years in Los Altos Hills while her husband worked hard.
“If I were to cut back on my groceries every time the stock market goes down, it’d be pretty confusing,” said Sigrun Corrigan, a longtime benefactor and board member of Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley.
The couple’s site development plans were approved recently by the Los Altos Hills City Council, without discussion, although they still need to do some additional engineering before obtaining a building permit.
Although the floor area for the Corrigan manse is a shade under 20,000 feet, the living space (minus the garages) is 15,870, leaving it just shy of the largest owner-occupied house in the county, according to the assessor’s office. Still, that’s more than 10 times the size of the typical two-bedroom house.
Three years ago, Gaymond and Cindy Schultz bought what appears to be the largest owner-occupied house in Santa Clara County. The couple paid $6 million for an 18,000-square-foot home also in Los Altos Hills. And less than a mile away, builders are finishing another monster that rivals the Schultzes’. It has 15 bathrooms.
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No other homes comparable to the Corrigans’ have sold in recent months in Los Altos Hills, a Peninsula real estate agent who works the upper-end market said. But a 10,351-square-foot house on 5 acres in nearby Woodside sold for $19 million in late October.
And there’s a house on the market in San Mateo County’s Hillsborough that dwarfs the proposed Corrigan home. The Tobin Clark estate, a 35,000-square-foot, 45-room Cotswold Tudor manor, is listed at $45 million.
There’s no sign yet that the stock market’s nosedive has depressed this upper-end market.
It doesn’t seem to have fazed Corrigan, whose business, LSI Logic, was hit in the recent market tumble.
And in December, the Milpitas-based company issued a reduced fourth-quarter revenue forecast, citing a buildup of inventory in the supply chain.
But that hasn’t put much of a crimp in Corrigan’s plans for the new house. Outdoors, much of the property will be taken up with a vineyard in the front yard and an orchard in the rear. Some of the couple’s 8 acres of land will be set aside for a “secret garden,” an auto court and a tennis court. There will be room in the detached garage for four cars, and three more can be parked in the attached garage.
The new home in Los Altos Hills isn’t the Corrigans’ only major purchase of late. In December the couple dropped a few million dollars to build a condo aboard a cruise ship being built in Norway.
Silicon Valley culture observer Paul Saffo joked that it was nice to see one of Silicon Valley’s ground-breaking chip makers is still able to hang with the free-spending dot-commers who’ve dominated the New Economy until the recent shakeout.
“There’s still a lot of money flashing around this valley,” said Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park. “You know, a lot of 20-somethings will probably have to hold off on buying a big new house until the next wave, but the valley’s not going broke anytime soon.”