EICHLER'S ATHERTON HOME
Bound for glory: the original Atherton home in which
builder Joe Eichler relived his FLWright experience

From the pages of the Eichler Network newsletter
By Marty Arbunich

Joe Eichler spent nearly his entire quarter century of homebuilding living in three residences he built himself. Two of them were custom single-family homes, certainly larger and with many more embellishments than his production houses. But they nonetheless evolved from a design aesthetic common to his developments, sharing the same architects.

One of these homes, aging well today at 51 and blending naturally among mature oaks on a one-acre parcel on Irving Avenue in Atherton's exclusive Lindenwood, is in line to be recognized for its significance. It was recently nominated for designation to the National Register of Historic Places.

Designed by Eichler's original architects, Anshen & Allen, the Atherton home was built in 1951, soon after the debut in Sunnyvale of the groundbreaking Sunnyvale Manor II development, which featured the architects' very first designs for Eichler. It would become Eichler and wife Lillian's only home throughout the prime of Eichler Homes, until 1965.

Much of the influence for the Atherton home's modern and open design can be traced to architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who in different ways had a great impact on both Eichler and architect Bob Anshen. During World War II, Eichler lived in a Wright-designed Usonian, the Bazett house, in Hillsborough, an experience that touched off his momentous dream of building homes in its likeness. An ardent devotee of Wright, Anshen met Eichler in 1947, the year Eichler began building prefabricated single-family houses. Two years later, Eichler hired him to design the first of two plans for a new family home and, shortly afterwards, the innovative AA-1 model for Sunnyvale Manor II.

"...I felt almost immediately that this man [Anshen] could do the job," Eichler told 'Architecture West' magazine a decade later. Looking to reconnect with his earlier Bazett house experience, Eichler set out to build his new home in Hillsborough and, with Anshen's guidance, incorporate many of the Bazett's design elements. While Anshen's design did not include the Bazett's V-shaped plan and hexagonal module, its design similarities -- indoor-outdoor orientation, small galley kitchen, radiant heat, built-in furniture, and other materials -- were obvious. However, due to a government-imposed regulation in the postwar limiting residential construction to only 1,100 square feet, construction was put on hold.

A year later, the project was revived, the plan revamped, and the site shifted to nearby Lindenwood. The new design was even more in line with Wright and the Bazett, restoring the 'V' configuration, and introducing a parallelogram-shaped theme that ran throughout the rooms and swimming pool. While much larger than Wright's Usonians, its redwood and brick exterior, wall of glass facing the rear, and undersized kitchen bore the signature elements. Whether or not Eichler was attempting to relive his paradise lost, the feeling and ambience of the Bazett, in part due to Eichler's liberal budget and Anshen's devotion to Wright's detailing, had returned.

Perhaps the Eichlers' new home may have inspired the builder in its own way. According to the 'Palo Alto Times,' while profiling Lillian Eichler in the mid-1950s, before new features were introduced in Eichler production homes, Joe looked for his wife's reaction by testing the ideas in their Lindenwood home, a "cinemascope" version of his tract houses. "There the fate of a sliding door, built-in television and furniture, fabrics, floors -- just about everything -- is determined," the reporter noted. "I'm a guinea pig," Lillian herself quipped.

The house also seemed to serve as a test case for Eichler's company, which, in the early '50s, looked to appeal to the upper middle class settling in Atherton. "Most of the original homes in Lindenwood, even when we arrived in the mid-1960s, were rather large yet simple and unimaginative one-story ranch-style houses, built some time between 1949 and 1955," said Paul Feder, who succeeded the Eichlers as owner in 1966. "I would say that there are probably only one in ten houses today that hasn't had a considerable amount of work done on it, and one in four torn down and replaced with great big two-story houses, mostly by a new breed of multi-millionaires."

As a featured announcement in Eichler Homes' 1953 brochure, the planned Lindenwood Eichler development offered four different three- and four-bedroom designs, and, at $42,500 to $49,500, the priciest Eichlers on the peninsula at the time. After building only three large modern models on nearby Linden Avenue, and another directly across from his own home on Irving, Eichler abandoned his Lindenwood plans, not an easy fit even in his own backyard.

In 1954, as a prelude to Joe and Lillian's plans for redecorating, Eichler Homes' other architectural affiliate, Jones & Emmons, was brought in to revamp the wing of the home containing the pool dressing area, which housed a noisy pump for pool operation, into an all-purpose room. It would be one of the very few modifications to the original house during its 50 years. In the following year, Eichler discussed plans with Anshen & Allen to add a second story onto the house. A rendering was created, but the project, which likely would have affected the persona of the property, never reached fruition.

Eichler Homes' shift into urban high-rise development, which began in the early '60s, had financially overextended Eichler by 1965, ultimately driving his company to insolvency. It also factored into the builder's decision to sell the Lindenwood property. "The selling of that house was a combination of some of these emerging financial issues with the company," pointed out Ned Eichler, Joe's son and the company's executive vice-president at the time, "but perhaps primarily it had more to do with my parents spending most of their time in San Francisco at that point." The Eichlers would move from Atherton to the penthouse of the Eichler-built Summit high rise in San Francisco, and eventually commission Claude Oakland to design their second custom home, built in Hillsborough in 1972.

The soft Bay Area real estate market in the mid-1960s did not help to expedite the sale of the house, which, by the time the Feders came along, had been on the market for a year or more. "My impression was over a year," recalled Feder, "though I don't think the Eichlers made a concerted effort during that time to sell it. It was a casual effort. And my understanding is that the price had come down a good deal."

Feder discovered his future Atherton home through Jonas Harschel, a good friend who, in the early 1960s, was also a salesman for Eichler Homes. Ironically, Harschel had met Eichler for the first time in 1951, in the driveway of the Atherton house, while it was under construction. "Joe was in a bad mood that day," Harschel remembers clearly. "He said to me, standing next to his contractor, 'Look at this! I'm building a $40,000 house, and you can see all the nails in the siding!'"

Nine years later, Harschel found himself on Eichler's payroll, a role that continued until shortly after the Atherton sale. "I knew the Feders had been looking for a house, and almost bought one in Hillsborough -- an old Victorian," Harschel added. " I told Paul, let me see if I can make the deal for you. We ended up reducing the price, and Joe asked me to cut my commission in half, which I did."

Paul Feder and his family remain thankful. "When we first walked into this house, we were emotionally struck. I said this place is absolutely beautiful," exclaimed Feder, who purchased the house at a price, near $90,000, he felt was most agreeable. It's now worth millions. "We knew that it was a steal, but we also knew that this house was too radical for most buyers."

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