Joseph Leopold Eichler was born on June 25, 1900, in New York City, and raised around
Sutton Place, Manhattan,[2] where his father and mother ran a small toy store, and in
The Bronx.[3][4] His father was Austrian and his mother was German, and he was raised traditional
Jewish.[4] Eichler attended
New York University (NYU) and earned a business degree.[4]
In 1925, the Eichler family moved to the
San Francisco Bay Area, in order to work in the Moncharsh family wholesale butter and egg business Nye and Nisson, Inc, which closed by the mid-1940s.[4] Nye & Nissen was found, by the government, to be selling eggs that were outdated or incorrectly graded.[2] Abe Moncharsh,[5] Joe's brother-in-law, served six months to a year in jail.[2][6][7][8]
By 1943, and until 1946, Joe's Peninsula Farmyard, a retail store, in
Burlingame, California, specialized in poultry and eggs.[2]
Between 1949 and 1966, Joseph Eichler's company, Eichler Homes, built more than 11,000[4] 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.[citation needed] The largest contiguous Eichler Homes development is "
The Highlands" in
San Mateo, built between 1956 and 1964.[11]
According to his son,[13] Eichler was inspired by a short period of time when the family lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home in
Hillsborough.[14] 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[15] Robert Anshen of
Anshen & Allen to design the initial Eichlers, and the first prototypes were built in 1949.[16] 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.
Sequoyah Hills –
Oakland, California, built between 1965 and 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 views with some having views of the east bay city lights and the bay.[17]
Contra Costa County
Concord, California – Three Eichler tracts (Rancho Del Diablo, Rancho Los Santos, and Parkwood Estates) consisting of approximately 175 homes built between 1963 and 1964
South Land Park and South Land Park Hills neighborhoods in
Sacramento, California – with many Eichler homes and a street named Eichler Street. Around 140 Eichler homes were originally planned in South Land Park Hills. 60 were finished and approximately 55 remain.
Palo Alto has more Eichler homes than any other city.[20] Midtown – South
Palo Alto, California, with many Eichler Homes, features a Swim and Tennis Club called "Eichler" on Louis Road just south of Greer Road. In south Palo Alto lies Greenmeadow, a tract planned and designed by Jones and Emmons, with landscaping by Thomas Church, recognized by the National Register of Historic Places,[21] which created the Eichler Tract Community Association and Aquatic Facility called "
Greenmeadow".
Sereno Foothills,
Monte Sereno, California with 16 Eichler homes. Eight were built in 1969 and 8 built in 1970.[22] This small tract was completed by J.L. Eichler and Associates (successor firm to Eichler Homes).
Bell Meadows – Mountain View, California, 48 Eichler homes built from 1972 to 1973, near Trophy Drive[19]
The Highlands –
San Mateo, California - with over 700 Eichlers, this is the largest contiguous development of Eichler homes; it also includes the experimental
X-100 steel house.
Bay Vista, Treasure Isle, and Marina Point Neighborhoods –
Foster City, California, three separate neighborhoods that are all in proximity to each other and feature Eichler homes intermixed with other types of architecture.[26][27] Bay Vista is the largest tract in Foster City.[26]
Ladera -
Ladera, California - with 25 Eichlers built during 1951 using architectural designs by Jones & Emmons[28]
Southern California
"Eichler Homes In Conejo Village" and Expo/West –
Thousand Oaks, California, with 103 Eichler homes in the "Eichler Homes In Conejo Village" tract, built between 1964 and 1966.[29] The newer portion of the development was marketed as Expo/West.
Palm Springs, California in the southernmost Andreas Hills neighborhood – building started in 2015 based on Eichler's blueprints, built by KUD Development.[31][32]
Other projects
Joseph Eichler also built semi-custom designs for individual clients by commission.[33] There are also three Eichlers built as the first houses of an aborted tract in the mid-1960s in
Chestnut Ridge, New York.[34] 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
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
In 1925,[35] he[36][37] married Lilian Moncharsh[30][38] (1902–1982),[39] the daughter of Polish Jewish emigres.[40] Together they had two sons, Edward "Ned" Philip[41] (1930–2014) and Richard Lionel Eichler (1928–1998).[42][43]
Sources
Adamson, Paul; Marty, Arbunich (2002). Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream. Ernest Braun (photographer). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publishers.
ISBN1-58685-184-5.
^"The Kings of Suburbia". Tablet Magazine. September 1, 2020. Retrieved February 8, 2023. After attending New York University and marrying Lillian Moncharsh in 1925, he relocated to Northern California, where he worked as a food broker for his father-in-law's wholesale dairy business for the next 20 years.
^Legaspi, Rexy (May 14, 2022).
"Joseph Eichler – Father of California Midcentury-Modern Housing". The Plan Collection. Retrieved February 8, 2023. When Eichler married Lilian Moncharsh – whose family owned a butter and eggs wholesale firm – he eventually worked for his in-laws and joined the competitive food industry. In 1940 Eichler moved with his wife and two sons to California so that he could assume the position of treasurer of the San Francisco-based family business.