LETTERS TO HOME DESIGN : It’s Not Quite an Eichler, but It Has Done All Right
Re “Off the Beaten Tract--30 Years After Eichler Homes Were Built” (Oct. 23):
We bought our tract home in 1957 with my GI loan. Mary Kay and I started on the coast, working our way inland to find the home we wanted to squander our GI loan on. (The farther we went inland, the more house we could buy.)
We were modernists. I had lost out as a builder and designer of modern (then) post-and-beam homes in Salt Lake. I designed and built the most beautiful home in Salt Lake with gorgeous Mt. Olympus as its front view.
I was now an aircraft engineer for Douglas.
We passed this tract that we could see over a block wall. Mary Kay and I went “Wow!” (just like the Eichler owners in your article). We held our breath. The Betty Furness Frematic home salesman assured us we qualified.
A few years later we visited the more modern (then) Eichlers. Again we went “Wow!” But we were comfortable with our Frematic, and our resources not too good . . . so we did not make the trade.
Our Frematic is a paradisical tropical garden with exotic fern and philodendron. It too is a post-and-beam constructed home. Our walls and fireplace are decorated by the most beautiful paintings and ceramics in the world.
Our disappointment of not owning an Eichler has not been entirely eased, but we have done the best we could with our Frematic.
Le Roy J. Davis
Anaheim
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Re “No Crime in Breaking the Set” (Sept. 18):
I was so happy to see the article on “mix/match” china.
I do not own a “set” of china. Since the late ‘40s when I was living in New York City, I started going to thrift shops, Salvation Army, junk and antique shops and collected all kinds of single pieces of china. I still go to garage, yard and alley sales and collect. I was telling a friend the other day that I have enough dinner plates for a sit-down dinner party for at least 50 people. It really does make for a nice and different dinner table when nothing matches.
One day my heir is going to ask, “What am I going to do with all this china?” Thanks for bringing this idea to people’s attention.
Bob Clark
Laguna Beach
