STYLE / CLASSICS : TRACT STARS : In the 25 years since Joseph Eichler built his last house, his innovative homes have won fans among a new generation. His son tells the story of the houses that Joe built.
It was 1942, and I was just a kid when my father, Joseph Eichler, came home one night and announced that we were moving to a rented house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. My father, who had no previous interest in art or architecture, ran a successful but uninspiring wholesale butter and egg business in the San Francisco area. Although our stay in the Wright house was temporary--the owner returned in a few years--it was clear that the experience had tapped some aesthetic yearning in him. Eventually, both of my parents became zealous devotees of contemporary architecture. So much so that a few years later, my father became a builder, investing in 50 lots in east Sunnyvale. It was the beginning of Eichler Homes.
His first tract houses were conventional boxes, typical of the type being built in the post-World War II housing boom, with wood floors and sheetrock walls and selling for about $10,000. Hardly the kind of design that would make a Wright fan happy. But late in 1948, my father met architect Bob Anshen, a Wright disciple. “How can someone like you, who loves real architecture, build this crap?” he asked. Anshen’s words struck a chord and, after much negotiation, he convinced my father that he could design a better tract house and do it under budget. The first Anshen designs--three-bedroom, one-bath, 900-square-foot houses with redwood siding, paneling and post-and-beam ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass on the rear facade, open-interior planning and radiant-heated concrete floors--became the basis for more than 10,000 houses built during the next 18 years.
Most subdivision home builders at the time considered good architecture an unnecessary element. The business had been closed to young, talented teams such as Anshen & Allen of San Francisco and Jones & Eamons from Los Angeles, both of whom my father hired. But building architecturally daring houses was, for my father, a point of pride as well as a vehicle for his artistic expression. He infused employees, subcontractors and suppliers with his zeal, and together, for a decade or so, they performed a near miracle. 1955 was the peak selling year for Eichler Homes, and in 1960, the company expanded into Southern California.
Over the years, there were refinements and upgrading--a fourth bedroom, a second or even third bath, a family room, an atrium, a “split” plan (the master bedroom and a study on one side and three bedrooms and a bath on the other), peaked roofs, more sliding doors, laundry areas in the bedroom wing, and so on. But the basic theme remained: blank front facades, rear and sometimes side walls of floor-to-ceiling glass, fenced yards, kitchens open to the family room, wood siding, and post-and-beam ceilings, both stained, and radiant-heated concrete floors.
But if any one feature defined the Eichler home and my father’s willingness to innovate, it was the atrium. In 1957, sales had slumped. There were numerous meetings with the architects in a relentless search for more appealing or less expensive houses. Anshen proposed the atrium, an architectural element once favored by the Romans. Desperate to pump up sales, my father decided to try it. One of the main criticisms of an Eichler home had been its minimal and unassuming entry. Now, after approaching a still relatively austere Eichler facade and opening the front door, one was met with a surprise--an enclosed courtyard. It was an instant hit. Although the atrium had little practical use and generated myriad construction problems, it had enormous impact. For the young postwar generation of homeowners who embraced modernity as their lifestyle, my father’s innovations were highly desirable.
Inevitably, though, working through other people and being restrained by zoning lows and building codes frustrated him. For example, while he had more control of colors than any other visual aspect of an Eichler home, even that was not total. Customers had their own ideas and often rebelled against him, designating how the exterior of the home they were buying should be stained. Once, driving by a house being painted, he jumped out of the car. “Who the hell picked this color?” he demanded. “The buyer,” a painter told him. “It doesn’t go right with the houses on either side. Change it.” “But Joe,” the painter said, “it’s their house.” “Like hell it is,” my father told him. “It’s my house. Change the damn color.”
In the end, his strict adherence to principles was too limiting and several trends conspired to finally sink the company in 1967. For one, Eichler homes only appealed to a limited audience of young families with upper-middle-class taste but lower-middle-class budgets. Materials were becoming more expensive. Buyers who had previously appreciated the Eichler look were making more money and moving on to custom-built homes. And there was a growing preference for more romantic architecture, often expressed in the purchase and remodeling of older houses.
My father’s dream of the affordable architect-designed home for the masses ultimately failed, but his designs have changed the way homes are built today. And he’d be happy to know that his houses have found an appreciative audience, selling for as much as $1 million and coveted by a new generation of architects, designers and homeowners.
