diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index b2feeede4fd69..44b20a3daaf58 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,6 +1,15 @@
 JULIAHOME = $(abspath .)
 include $(JULIAHOME)/Make.inc
 
+# TODO: Code bundled with Julia should be installed into a versioned directory,
+# PREFIX/share/julia/VERSDIR, so that in the future one can have multiple
+# major versions of Julia installed concurrently. Third-party code that
+# is not controlled by Pkg should be installed into
+# PREFIX/share/julia/site/VERSDIR (not PREFIX/share/julia/VERSDIR/site ...
+# so that PREFIX/share/julia/VERSDIR can be overwritten without touching
+# third-party code).
+VERSDIR = v`cut -d. -f1-2 < VERSION`
+
 all: default
 default: release
 
@@ -55,7 +64,7 @@ JL_PRIVATE_LIBS = amd arpack cholmod colamd fftw3 fftw3f fftw3_threads \
 
 PREFIX ?= julia-$(JULIA_COMMIT)
 install: release
-	@for subdir in "bin" "libexec" $(JL_LIBDIR) $(JL_PRIVATE_LIBDIR) "share/julia" "include/julia" ; do \
+	@for subdir in "bin" "libexec" $(JL_LIBDIR) $(JL_PRIVATE_LIBDIR) "share/julia" "include/julia" "share/julia/site/"$(VERSDIR) ; do \
 		mkdir -p $(PREFIX)/$$subdir ; \
 	done
 ifeq ($(OS), Darwin)
diff --git a/base/client.jl b/base/client.jl
index 8f248a6ffb275..18983c496f9d9 100644
--- a/base/client.jl
+++ b/base/client.jl
@@ -264,10 +264,13 @@ is_interactive = false
 isinteractive() = (is_interactive::Bool)
 
 function init_load_path()
+    vers="v$(VERSION.major).$(VERSION.minor)"
     global const LOAD_PATH = ByteString[
         ".", # TODO: should we really look here?
         abspath(Pkg.dir()),
         abspath(JULIA_HOME,"..","share","julia","extras"),
+        abspath(JULIA_HOME,"..","local","share","julia","site",vers),
+        abspath(JULIA_HOME,"..","share","julia","site",vers)
     ]
 end