I read a piece in the San Jose Mercury News yesterday about the possibility of Steve Jobs’ childhood home becoming an historic site. It was posted in a LinkedIn group, “The Anarchist Guide to Historic House Museums,” asking members what they’d do with it.

While I’m not sure what I’d do with it were I the director, I love the idea of preserving it. Few middle class mid-century suburban homes have ever been preserved anywhere, and this one is a fascinating mix of ordinary domestic and revolutionary industrial (the first 50 Apple I computers were built there).

But would geeks (and I’m a little geeky) flock to mecca, or be happy with a YouTube tour shot on an iPhone? Do the docents have to be conversant in BASIC? Might Woz come back as a historic furnishings consultant? Would the historic site be able to use historic versions of the Apple logo without getting sued? And could its web sit be anything less than a stellar example of functionality and design?

I can already hear people saying “it’s too soon!” After all, Jobs died only a couple of years ago. But there is no time like the present.

A few months ago, I was driving to a midtown Detroit hospital and came upon a small, white, suburban style ranch house. In the middle of Detroit! Anywhere else I’d never have noticed it, but a block off Woodward Avenue, it kinda stood out. It seemed unimaginable that anyone would build a house like that there. Or at least no one ever had, which led my mind to many other questions about housing and culture and cities and suburbs and green and paved and sameness and difference and black and white.

Which, I soon discovered, is kind of the point. The house isn’t the start of some new urban renewal subdivision. It’s art. Or a mobile community center. Or both. Called “Mobile Homestead,” it’s the last work of art by Mike Kelley, who committed suicide recently at age 57. So yes, not only is there no time like the present; there is no time but the present.

Detroit already has its share of historic homes, but none of them mobile until now. In fact it’s made a cottage industry (pun intended) of Henry Ford family houses. That trend was started in 1929 by Henry Ford himself when he had his boyhood farmhouse moved a few miles to Greenfield Village, his new outdoor museum. At the time, 19th-century farmhouses were nothing special. Lots of people had grown up in them. But Ford knew exactly what he wanted, and had the place fixed up just the way he wanted people to think he remembered it. (Yes, you read that right.)

Which leads back to the original question, WWSJD? Would he want anybody with ten bucks to be able to see what posters he had on his bedroom wall and what brand of toothpaste he used?  I’m still not sure, but if I get to lead the brainstorming session to figure out what to do with that house, I’ll project two words on the wall to get us started: Think Different.