These days, they are some of the most over-hyped homes of the mid-century modern era, poorly insulated, prone to major headaches when you have to repair the in-slab plumbing radiant heating system and don't forget the roof leaks. At the same time they are also some of the most beautiful homes of their era that revolutionized how we lived in the modern age, bringing the outdoors, indoors with expansive walls of glass and enclosed atriums that also gave us a sense a privacy.
There was a time when you could pick these homes up for a song and sadly many of the people who bought them in the decades that followed their original construction, horribly mangled their architectural merits in ways that I will not mention here, but drive through any of these tracts and you will see what I mean. In the last 15 years or so, the interest in these homes has increased greatly and in some ways it's a good thing, as the love / hate world of Eichler homes has led to more of the people who enjoy these homes for what they are, buying them up and fixing up sensitively and often times restoring them to their original condition. The downside is that the prices being asked for these homes can be higher than other, homes in the same area that are not so architecturally significant.
I still love Eichlers and mid-century modern style in general, but I am also a practical person who probably would not want to deal with their quirks.
I explored one of the tracts in San Jose, CA while on a weekend trip up from L.A. and found that the amount of houses that still looked like they did back in their day was higher than the neighborhoods I have seen here in Southern California.
This is one of the most popular pages on my website. It seems everyone wants to see Eichler homes online, so here is that slide show for your enjoyment. Check out the other photos I have taken of modern and contemporary styled homes in California on the site as well.
You can learn more about the famous homebuilder Eichler and the architects who designed these fabulous pads of the space-age at The Eichler Network.
3 comments:
On your next trip up North, you should try to see a few of the Eichler tracts in both San Francisco and further north in Marin County (over the Golden Gate Bridge).
There are some AMAZING 2-story eichler homes in Tiburon and also some amazing eichler neighborhoods in San Rafael (especially Upper Lucas Valley).
You can preview the neighborhoods online at this site: http://www.eichlerforsale.com
Thanks for the tip Barry.
I'm familiar with that Torrance neighborhood. Nice to see that so many of the houses are intact. That drives me crazy when people do a hatchet job remodel. For example, putting red tile roofs on those Asian style houses. What were they thinking?
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