By Arrol Gellner
Back in 1963, a reporter asked California developer Joseph Eichler, "What do you call your homes, contemporary or modern or what?"
"I call them Eichler homes," he responded. "There's nothing else like them."
With their dramatic facades, breezy interiors and Californian focus on patio living; Eichlers are still standouts today, a half-century after their inception. Widely emulated from coast to coast, yet never quite equaled, they remain the very definition of contemporary style during the 1950s and 60s.
Joseph Eichler, the man behind these groundbreaking designs, was a wealthy dairy executive with no background in architecture. However, he had briefly lived in a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and wondered why such houses couldn't be made affordable to everyone. He was finally inspired to take on the task himself.
Eichler hired the respected architect and Wright disciple Robert Anshen to design the initial Eichlers, and the first prototypes were built in 1949. During the next 18 years, a whole range of uncommon Eichler designs emerged, including later versions designed by the San Francisco firm of Claude Oakland & Associates and the Los Angeles firm of Jones & Emmons.
Eichlers had a host of unorthodox features, including post-and-beam construction, slab floors with integral radiant heating, and a standard second bathroom. Later models introduced the unforgettable Eichler atrium, an entrance foyer that daringly straddled the line between indoors and out.
Exteriors featured flat or low-sloped roofs, vertical siding, and shockingly blank street facades. At the side and rear walls, however, great sweeps of glass brought the outdoors in, without so much as a step to interrupt it.
Everything about Eichlers seemed light, fresh and modern compared to the dowdy postwar homes that glutted the market, and they quickly became a sales success. Yet they never garnered more than modest profits for their developer, due mainly to their unusual design. Although his associates urged him to make the houses more conventional, Eichler refused. Sadly, the realities of the housing market eventually caught up with him, and Eichler Homes filed for bankruptcy in 1967. Joseph Eichler continued building custom homes for another five years until the 1973 recession made that, too, untenable. He died in 1974.
Since then, time has brought a number of Eichler shortcomings to light. Bedrooms are cramped by modern standards, and the thin, mahagony-paneled walls, hollow doors, and free-standing partitions make the interiors unusually noisy. The innovative radiant heating systems have proved troublesome, and the post-and-beam framing system can make sensitive remodeling a challenge.
Designed during an era of cheap energy, Eichlers also made extravagant use of glass and were poorly insulated. As energy costs soared during the 70s, the houses proved disastrously inefficient, and unlike homes with attics and conventional windows, there was no quick retrofit available.
For these reasons, as well as Modernism's fall from favor, the Eichler will forever remain emblematic of the 50s and 60s. But what an emblem!
Though Joseph Eichler's uncompromising vision brought him financial ruin, his legacy has proved more permanent.
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