Professorville Movers for Palo Alto's Historic Houses

The houses are mostly two and three stories: brown-shingle and Craftsman designs, Colonial Revival, and a few Victorians, many with deep front porches, steep main staircases and smaller back stairs. Rooms connect through original doorways that were never sized for a modern sectional. Floors are often old-growth wood, and many owners have antiques, built-in bookcases and pianos.

The crew lays runners from the porch to every room, pads stair rails and newel posts with blankets, and plans the path for big pieces before lifting. If an item looks like it will not make a turn, we say so at the estimate, not on the landing.

Some owners are moving within the neighborhood or downsizing into a smaller downtown place, which often means deciding what goes, what stays and what heads to storage. Making those calls before move day keeps the crew carrying instead of waiting.

For a two-story house with full rooms upstairs, plan on at least 3 movers at $175 an hour, and 4 movers at $235 for a three-bedroom over 1,800 square feet or a four-bedroom. Two movers at $145 is only for very small jobs, such as a few rooms to a cottage. We have a 3-hour minimum, then charge in 15-minute increments, at the same rate seven days a week. A grand or baby grand piano always needs 4 movers, and a piano-only grand move has a 4-hour minimum.

Professorville: typical hours and totals by home size

The table below comes from the billed time on our recent local jobs for direct customers where the home size was recorded. Easy access and boxes packed ahead pull a move toward the low end. Local moves are billed by the hour, never as a flat price.

Hours are the middle half of billed hours on our recent local moves for direct customers, July to October 2026, including the drive between homes; account and partner-billed jobs and jobs with our full packing service are left out. Packing materials are extra, and every job has a 3-hour minimum ($525 with 3 movers).

Two- and three-story houses with steep main staircases, antiques and pianos tend to land in the upper rows.

ZIP 94301 sent only 2 requests between mid-July and late October 2026, both of which booked or completed. Citywide, Palo Alto sent 5 quote requests in that window, all local moves, and 3 have booked or completed. Most of the listed sizes were one-bedroom homes, which says more about the apartments and cottages in town than about the big houses in this district.

Professorville is about 16 miles northwest of downtown San Jose, up US-101 or Central Expressway to Embarcadero Road. Our Peninsula arrival window is 8 to 10 AM, and the foreman phones half an hour ahead. Travel to your address is free. Downtown Palo Alto streets carry a lot of parked cars, and some blocks are in a residential permit parking program, so we check the block in advance and tell you whether to save curb space. A 26-foot truck needs roughly 40 feet for the truck and its ramp. Check with the city whether a temporary no-parking permit is needed if the curb cannot be held any other way; we help you plan it.

• Photograph fragile antiques and list them for the crew lead.
• Tell us about pianos, safes or anything over 300 pounds; send a photo and David confirms the plan.
• Remove art and mirrors from stairwell walls.
• Clear porch furniture and potted plants from the entry path.
• Ask about full-value coverage through Baker International if basic $0.60 per pound coverage is not enough for your pieces.

• Palo Alto movers: the whole city.
• Crescent Park movers: larger estates by San Francisquito Creek.
• Old Palo Alto movers: period homes south of Embarcadero.
• Stanford movers: campus housing and faculty homes.
• Menlo Park movers: just across the creek.

Related: piano moving.