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Joseph Eichler

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Joseph Eichler
Joseph Eichler in 1958
Born(1900-06-25)June 25, 1900
New York City, New York
DiedJuly 1, 1974(1974-07-01) (aged 74)
San Mateo County, California
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materNew York University
OccupationReal estate developer
SpouseLillian Moncharsh
Children2

Joseph Leopold Eichler (June 25, 1900 – July 1, 1974) was a 20th-century post-war American real estate developer known for developing distinctive residential subdivisions of mid-century modern style tract housing in California. He was one of the influential advocates of bringing modern architecture from custom residences and large corporate buildings to general public availability. His company and developments remain in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.[1]

Biography

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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Nye and Nisson, Inc, which closed by the mid-1940s.[4] Regulators found Nye & Nissen was selling eggs that were outdated and incorrectly graded.[2] Abe Moncharsh,[5] Joe's brother-in-law, served six months to a year in jail.[2][6][7][8]

For a few years in the mid 40s Joe ran a retail store Peninsula Farmyard in Burlingame, California which sold poultry and eggs.[2]

In 1943, Eichler rented the Sidney Bazett House in Hillsborough, California, a Usonian-style house built by Frank Lloyd Wright.[3][4][9] Living in the Bazett house inspired Eichler to become a residential real estate developer of Modernist houses.[10]

Eichler Homes

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Foster Residence, Granada Hills

Between 1949 and 1966, Joseph Eichler's company, Eichler Homes, built more than 11,000[4] houses in nine communities in Northern California and houses 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]

Joseph Eichler was a social visionary who commissioned designs primarily for middle-class Americans. One of his stated aims was to construct inclusive and diverse planned communities, ideally featuring integrated parks and community centers. Eichler established a non-discrimination policy and offered homes for sale to anyone of any religion or race. In 1958, he resigned from the National Association of Home Builders when they refused to support a non-discrimination policy.[12]

Design

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According to his son,[13] Eichler was inspired by a short period of time when the family lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed house 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 houses 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 houses 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 houses 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 made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Eichler house 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 houses 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 houses were airy and modern in comparison to most of the mass-produced, middle-class, postwar houses 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.

Projects

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The Northern California Eichler Homes are predominantly in San Francisco, Marin County, Sacramento, the East Bay towns of Walnut Creek, Castro Valley, Concord, Oakland, and the San Francisco Peninsula towns of San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and San Jose. The Southern California Eichler Homes developments are in Thousand Oaks, Granada Hills, Orange and Palm Springs.

Eichler Homes neighborhoods

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Northern California

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Alameda County
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  • 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
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Marin County
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Sacramento County
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  • 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.
Santa Clara County
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San Francisco County
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San Mateo County
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Southern California

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Other projects

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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.

Trivia

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In 2024, Eichler's personal home in Atherton, California, built in 1952, was placed on the market.[35]

Personal life

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In 1925,[36] he[37][38] married Lilian Moncharsh[30][39] (1902–1982),[40] the daughter of Polish Jewish emigres.[41] Together they had two sons, Edward "Ned" Philip[42] (1930–2014) and Richard Lionel Eichler (1928–1998).[43][44]

Sources

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  • Adamson, Paul; Marty, Arbunich (2002). Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream. Ernest Braun (photographer). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publishers. ISBN 1-58685-184-5.
  • Adamson, Paul (March 2001). "California modernism and the Eichler homes". The Journal of Architecture. 6 (1): 1–25. doi:10.1080/13602360010024804. S2CID 110272707.
  • Ditto, Jerry; Lanning, Stern (1995). Design for Living: Eichler Homes. Marvin Wax (photographer). San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-0846-7.
  • Jacobs, Karrie (May 15, 2005). "Saving the Tract House". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved December 26, 2009.

References

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  1. ^ Ghert-Zand, Renee (March 2, 2012). "How 'Eichlers' Brought Design to Suburbia". Jewish Daily Forward. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d "When Joe Eichler Ran a Farmyard". EichlerNetwork. October 24, 2018. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Joseph L. Eichler (1900–1974)". USModernist. Modernist Archive, Inc. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Adamson, Paul (2002). Eichler: Modernism rebuilds the American Dream (first ed.). Gibbs Smith. pp. 22, 44–45. ISBN 1-58685-184-5.
  5. ^ "Abraham Moncharsh". geni.com. February 18, 1894. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  6. ^ "Nye & Nissen v. United States, 168 F.2d 846 (9th Cir. 1948)". Justia Law. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  7. ^ "Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613 (1949)". Justia Law. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  8. ^ "NYE & NISSEN et al. v. UNITED STATES". Legal Information Institute.
  9. ^ Arbunich, Marty. "The Bazett House - Hillsborough". Eichler Network. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  10. ^ Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area, 2007, Susan Cerny, Gibbs Smith, 143.
  11. ^ "The Highlands". eichlerhometour.org. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  12. ^ Gale, Roy (June 28, 1958). "Jim Crow Real Estate Men Hit by Calif. Court" (PDF). The Militant Newspaper. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  13. ^ O'DELL, LYNN (October 23, 1993). "Eichler Influenced by Wright: After Living in a House Designed by the Architect, Eichler Set Out to Build His Own and Never Quit". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  14. ^ "The Bazett House - Hillsborough". Eichler Network. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  15. ^ O'DELL, LYNN (October 23, 1993). "Eichler Influenced by Wright : After Living in a House Designed by the Architect, Eichler Set Out to Build His Own and Never Quit". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  16. ^ "Joe Eichler Profile". Eichler Network. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  17. ^ Joseph Eichler eichlerforsale.com
  18. ^ "Steve Jobs called Mountain View home as a child". Mountain View Voice Newspaper. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  19. ^ a b "where to look in Mountain View". JohnFyten.com. December 14, 2013. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  20. ^ "Palo Alto Eichler Homes". eichlerforsale.com. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  21. ^ "National Register of Historic Places — Eichler Home's Greenmeadow (Units I and II) development". National Park Service. June 16, 2005. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  22. ^ Surveyor/MRecordMap/Book250_299/255M47.pdf sccgov.org HTTP 404
  23. ^ Arbunich, Marty. "Eichler's Early Years: 1949-'50 The First Subdivisions". Eichler Network. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
  24. ^ a b Weinstein, Dave (July 24, 2018). "Historic Strategy Fails at Pomeroy Green". Eichler Network. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
  25. ^ "Work in Progress: 19th Avenue - San Mateo". Eichler Network. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  26. ^ a b "Foster City Eichlers". Peninsula Eichlers. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  27. ^ "Foster City Eichler Neighborhoods".
  28. ^ "Eichler Subdivisions: Eichler's Early Years: 1951-'52". Eichler Network. Retrieved July 10, 2018.
  29. ^ "Free lecture on Eichler homes in Thousand Oaks set". Ventura County Star. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  30. ^ a b c d "Eichler Tracts (Fairhaven, Fairhills, Fairmeadow) Historic Context Statement". cityoforange.org. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  31. ^ "The First New Eichler Home in 40 Years is Almost Finished". Curbed. January 20, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  32. ^ "Reborn Eichler". Palm Springs Life. May 1, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  33. ^ "Custom Built Eichler For Sale in Hillsborough CA". August 19, 2014.
  34. ^ Cohen, Michelle (March 13, 2017). "Modern-Spotting: The Lost Eichlers of Rockland County, NY". 6sqft. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  35. ^ Anna Marie Erwart (March 30, 2024). "Influential developer's custom Bay Area home hits market for first time in 60 years". sfgate.com.
  36. ^ "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.
  37. ^ "Joseph Leopold Eichler". geni.com. June 25, 1900. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  38. ^ "Joe Eichler Profile". EichlerNetwork. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  39. ^ "Lillian Moncharsh". geni.com. November 15, 1902. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  40. ^ 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.
  41. ^ Adamson, Paul and Marty Arbunich Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream edited by Marty Arbunich, Ernest Braun | 2002 | p. 44
  42. ^ "The Summit (a.k.a. the Eichler Summit)". EichlerNetwork. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  43. ^ Sheyner, Gennady. "Planned home brings angst to Eichler block in Palo Alto". PaloAltoOnline.com. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  44. ^ "Ned Eichler, son of innovative housing developer, dead at 83". Mercury News. April 15, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
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