Joseph Eichler

Joseph Leopold Eichler (June 25, 1900 – July 1, 1974) was a 20th-century post-war American real estate developer known for developing distinctive residential subdivisions of Mid-century modern style tract housing in California. He was one of the influential advocates of bringing modern architecture from custom residences and large corporate buildings to general public availability. His company and developments remain in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.[1]

Joseph Eichler
Joseph Eichler in 1958
Born(1900-06-25)June 25, 1900
New York City, New York
DiedJuly 1, 1974(1974-07-01) (aged 74)
San Mateo County, California
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
OccupationReal estate developer
Spouse(s)Lillian Moncharsh
Children2

Eichler Homes

Between 1949 and 1966, Joseph Eichler's company, Eichler Homes, built over 11,000[2] homes in nine communities in Northern California and homes in three communities in Southern California. Later, other firms worked with Eichler's company to build similar houses. Together, they all came to be known as Eichlers. During this period, Eichler became one of the nation's most influential builders of modern homes. The largest contiguous Eichler Homes development is "The Highlands" in San Mateo, built between 1956 and 1964.[3]

Foster Residence, Granada Hills

Joseph Eichler is considered by some to be a social visionary and commissioned designs primarily for middle-class Americans. One of his stated aims was to construct inclusive and diverse planned communities, ideally featuring integrated parks and community centers. Eichler established a non-discrimination policy and offered homes for sale to anyone of any religion or race. In 1958, he resigned from the National Association of Home Builders when they refused to support a non-discrimination policy.[4]

Design

According to his son,[5] Eichler was inspired by a short period of time when the family lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home in Hillsborough.[6] Eichler was attracted to the style and decided to try to produce similar designs. Joseph Eichler used well-known architects to design both the site plans and the homes themselves. He hired the respected architect and Wright disciple of sorts[7] Robert Anshen of Anshen & Allen to design the initial Eichlers, and the first prototypes were built in 1949.[8] In later years, Eichler built homes that were designed by other architects including by the San Francisco firm Claude Oakland & Associates and the Los Angeles firms of Jones & Emmons, A. Quincy Jones, and Raphael Soriano.

Eichler homes are examples of Modernist architecture that has come to be known as "California Modern", and typically feature glass walls, post-and-beam construction, and open floorplans in a style indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Eichler home exteriors featured flat and/or low-sloping A-framed roofs, vertical 2-inch pattern wood siding, and spartan facades with clean geometric lines. One of Eichler's signature concepts was to "bring the outside in", achieved via skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows with glass transoms looking out on protected and private outdoor rooms, patios, atriums, gardens, and swimming pools. Also of note is that most Eichler homes feature few, if any, front-facing (i.e., street-facing) windows; instead house fronts have either small, ceiling-level windows or small, rectangular windows with frosted glass. Many other architectural designs have large windows on all front-facing rooms.

The interiors had numerous unorthodox and innovative features for the time period including: exposed post-and-beam construction; tongue and groove decking for the ceilings following the roofline; concrete slab floors with integral radiant heating; lauan (Philippine mahogany) paneling; sliding doors for rooms, closets, and cabinets; and typically a second bathroom located in the master bedroom. Later models introduced the distinctive Eichler entry atriums, an open-air, enclosed entrance foyer designed to further advance the concept of integrating outdoor and indoor spaces.

Eichler homes were airy and modern in comparison to most of the mass-produced, middle-class, postwar homes built in the 1950s. At first, potential home buyers, many of whom were war-weary ex-servicemen and women seeking convention rather than innovation, were resistant to the innovative homes.

Projects

The Northern California Eichler Homes are predominantly in San Francisco, Marin County, Sacramento, the East Bay towns of Walnut Creek, Concord, Oakland, Castro Valley, and the San Francisco Peninsula towns of San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and San Jose. The Southern California Eichler Homes developments are in Thousand Oaks, Granada Hills, Orange and Palm Springs.

Marin County
Sacramento County
  • South Land Park - Around 140 Eichler homes were originally planned in South Land Park Hills. 60 were finished and approximately 55 remain.
San Mateo County
Santa Clara County
Alameda County
  • Sequoyah Hills – Oakland, California, built between 1965-1966, there are fewer than 50 homes in Oakland Hills.
  • Greenridge – Castro Valley, California, built along a ridge in the hills of Castro Valley, there are around 200 homes built by Joseph Eichler in the early to mid 1960s. Designed by Claude Oakland and Jones & Emmons, these homes feature a variety of floor plans from flat-top roofs to steeply pitched A-frames. Most of the homes feature the signature Eichler atrium along with floor-to-ceiling walls of glass and exposed post and beams. Most Greenridge homes have view with some having views of the east bay city lights and the bay.[19]
Contra Costa County
Other Northern California counties

Southern California

Other projects

Joseph Eichler also built semi-custom designs for individual clients by commission, such as this example in Hillsborough, California.[23] There are also three Eichlers built as the first houses of an aborted tract in the mid-1960s in Chestnut Ridge, New York.[24] As a result of soaring land prices in the mid-1960s urban redevelopment projects became popular, and Eichler began building low- and high-rise projects in San Francisco's Western Addition and Visitacion Valley, San Francisco districts, a luxury high-rise, the The Summit (a.k.a. the Eichler Summit) on Russian Hill and row houses on Diamond Heights. He also developed the suburban and trendsetting co-op communities Pomeroy Green and Pomeroy West in Santa Clara. These large projects began to overextend the company, and by the mid-1960s, Eichler Homes was in financial distress. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1967.

Personal life

He married Lilian Moncharsh (1902–1982), the daughter of Polish Jewish emigres.[25] Together they had two sons, Edward "Ned" Philip (1930–2014) and Richard.[26][27]

References
  1. Ghert-Zand, Renee (March 2, 2012)."How 'Eichlers' Brought Design to Suburbia - Jewish Builder Transformed American Ideal of Modern Homes". Jewish Daily Forward.
  2. Adamson, Paul (2002). Eichler: Modernism rebuilds the American Dream (first ed.). Gibbs Smith. p. 22. ISBN 1-58685-184-5.
  3. "The Highlands". eichlerhometour.org. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  4. Gale, Roy (1958-06-28). "Jim Crow Real Estate Men Hit by Calif. Court" (PDF). The Militant Newspaper. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  5. O'DELL, LYNN (1993-10-23). "Eichler Influenced by Wright: After Living in a House Designed by the Architect, Eichler Set Out to Build His Own and Never Quit". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  6. "The Bazett House - Hillsborough". Eichler Network. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  7. O'DELL, LYNN (1993-10-23). "Eichler Influenced by Wright : After Living in a House Designed by the Architect, Eichler Set Out to Build His Own and Never Quit". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  8. "Joe Eichler Profile". Eichler Network. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  9. "Work in Progress: 19th Avenue - San Mateo". Eichler Network. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  10. "Foster City Eichlers". Peninsula Eichlers. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  11. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ZEGF1pBuCiTwvvysi9EjCNMOANs&hl=en&ll=37.56083630590636%2C-122.258084&z=15
  12. "Eichler Subdivisions: Eichler's Early Years: 1951-'52". Eichler Network. Retrieved 2018-07-10.
  13. "Steve Jobs called Mountain View home as a child". Mountain View Voice Newspaper. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  14. "where to look in Mountain View". JohnFyten.com. 2013-12-14. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  15. "Palo Alto Eichler Homes | South Bay Eichlers". www.eichlerforsale.com. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
  16. "National Register of Historic Places — Eichler Home's Greenmeadow (Units I and II) development". National Park Service. June 16, 2005. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  17. https://www.sccgov.org/sites/dpd/DocsForms/Documents/Surveyor/MRecordMap/Book250_299/255M47.pdf
  18. Arbunich, Marty. "Eichler's Early Years: 1949-'50 The First Subdivisions". Eichler Network. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
  19. Joseph Eichler | Progressive builder of Joseph Eichler Homes | Architect
  20. "Free lecture on Eichler homes in Thousand Oaks set". Ventura County Star. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  21. "The First New Eichler Home in 40 Years is Almost Finished". Curbed. 2015-01-20. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  22. "Reborn Eichler". Palm Springs Life. 2015-05-01. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  23. "Custom Built Eichler For Sale in Hillsborough CA".
  24. Cohen, Michelle (2017-03-13). "Modern-Spotting: The Lost Eichlers of Rockland County, NY". 6sqft. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
  25. Adamson, Paul and Marty Arbunich Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream edited by Marty Arbunich, Ernest Braun | 2002 | p. 44
  26. Sheyner, Gennady. "Planned home brings angst to Eichler block in Palo Alto". PaloAltoOnline.com. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
  27. "Ned Eichler, son of innovative housing developer, dead at 83". Mercury News. Retrieved 2016-01-27.

Sources
  • Adamson, Paul; Marty, Arbunich (2002). Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream. Ernest Braun (photographer). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publishers. ISBN 1-58685-184-5.
  • Adamson, Paul (March 2001). "California modernism and the Eichler homes". The Journal of Architecture. 6 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1080/13602360010024804.
  • Ditto, Jerry; Lanning, Stern (1995). Design for Living: Eichler Homes. Marvin Wax (photographer). San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-0846-7.
  • Jacobs, Karrie (May 15, 2005). "Saving the Tract House". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
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