Suburbia proliferated across America in the decades after World War II and for all of its largess, little is architecturally memorable. But a post-war builder of a different sort, Joseph Eichler, who built innovative contemporary houses in California from the late 1940s to the 1970s, has inspired a devoted following who nurture their Eichler originals through a busy website, a 16-page quarterly newsletter and a laudatory coffee table book.
Eichler's version of suburbia has gained such cult-like devotion because his housing developments remain unmatched today for pairing Modern style with mass-scale scope. In the early years they sold for as little as $8,000, making them an affordable choice for young families. Today, they stand out in a market that seems to feature big houses on small lots and tried-and-true, traditional livery.
Running around 2,000 square feet, Eichlers feel bigger, says Catherine Munson, long-time Eichler realty specialist, thanks to their inherent openness. Epitomized by stoic fronts, with slit windows and flat or low-pitched A-frame roofs, Eichlers come to life inside with signature atriums and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking landscaped back yards. Other hallmarks include post-and-beam construction, allowing for all those glass walls, exposed ceiling beams and radiant heat, bathing the houses in light and warmth. "Owners love to lie down on their warm floors and gaze at their ceilings," Munson says.
"In my house, the atrium is enclosed with sheets of acrylic, making a wonderful, diffused light," enthuses Munson, who started her career selling newly-built homes for Eichler himself. "You really live in a garden environment in an Eichler. It is very Zen-like, a simple house with not a lot of jazz."
She recalls the builder as a charismatic man who took a principled stand for quality in an age of mass-production. A New York stockbroker, Eichler moved to Petaluma, CA, during the war to help his wife's family run their farm, which produced butter and eggs for the armed forces. He lived in a rented house in Atherton that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and thus became entranced by its architecture, and from there embarked on a career as apost-war builder of modern homes. "He would call every subdivision at 6 p.m. and his standard greeting was, 'What's doing?' Mr. Eichler wanted to hear if we thought something was misplaced or could work better, and he would always send an architect out to talk about it," says Munson.
A lot like Eich
About 20,000 visitors a month stop by the Eichler Network website a month, according to Marty Arbunich, who runs the site and is co-author of Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream. Online, visitors can read features on fellow Eichler owners -- one archived piece looks at the Arbunich-co-owned X-100 home, a super-futuristic, steel-construction home Eichler built in 1955 as a drawing card to attract traffic to his new San Mateo subdivision. Elsewhere, visitors convene in the Chatterbox Lounge to share stories and maintenance tips. Throughout the site, iconic black-and-white photos from the early decades show off pristine Eichlers and their early inhabitants.
On top of that, an annual home-maintenance directory is produced featuring lists of plumbers, electricians, and so on who specialize in fixing the builder's legacy homes. There even exists a band of realtors, in the Eichler strongholds around the San Francisco Bay, who are the go-to guys and gals if Eichler is on the wish list.
Eichler owners become so obsessed that they carefully seek out just the right furniture and artwork to embellish their nests. Notes Petros Papageorge of Atherton Appliances and Kitchens, the Italian-made Scavolini line of kitchen cabinets is popular among Eichler owners as its horizontal wood grain complements the natural wood grains evident in the Eichler homes' open beams. It gets that specific.
Since the site was launched in 1996, Arbunich says that Eichler owners better appreciate what they have and others have come to covet these mid-century modern houses. As an offshoot of the Eichler Network, Arbunich has started an homage site to Streng Brothers homes -- Eichler's contemporaries who built modern subdivisions in Sacramento, CA. Smaller homage sites exist here and there -- like the sites for fans/owners of the modern houses in Denver's Arapahoe Acres and Hollin Hills in Fairfax County, VA, for example.
Such devotion pays off. "Ten years ago, Eichlers were valued at less than comparably sized housing in like neighborhoods," says Arbunich. "That isn't the case anymore. They command higher prices than comps, and folks stand in line to bid against each other."