All In - Page 5

That way, the association would run a pool open to members from outside Greenmeadow, but the association would still be run by Greenmeadow residents for the benefit of their community.

In the early 1990s the neighborhood pioneered the idea of preserving privacy and the Eichler aesthetic by asking the city to ban second-story additions through a zoning overlay zone.

"We wanted to keep the integrity of these houses," Sigrid Pinsky says. "It only works if we keep it with single stories. I mean, the houses are very close. And also we like the look and the peacefulness of it."

Neighbors voted on the idea in 1992. Turnout was low, but support strong: 78 households voted aye, 16 nay. The zoning was established in 1993, and it has succeeded. "You won't see a two-story house in Greenmeadow," says Esther Lucas.

Greenmeadow has always had an architectural review committee, which won't surprise visitors who can view a tract that is largely intact.

Still, Penny Ellson says, "Some houses have been substantially changed. They're still modern, and they still have some lines of an Eichler, but they're walking away [from the Eichler style]."

The goal of the architectural review committee, says Patrick Everett, an architect who serves on it, is "to keep the Eichlers as original as we can."

But the committee, says member Norm Adams, "unfortunately, is in the position of mostly cajoling people," rather than compelling them to preserve the home's original look.

"The only recourse we would have would be to start suing people for not obeying the deed restriction [concerning architecture]," he says. "And no one's had the appetite to go down that path."

The way architectural review works in Greenmeadow says much about the tract's community let's-all-get-along ethos.

The committee does its job by "working with our neighbors, treating it as a neighborly sort of thing rather than some sort of power position," Adams says. "And I think that that's helped us kind of win them over with respect and kindness."

• Eichler's Greenmeadow is bordered by E. Charleston Road to the north, Alma Street to the west, and by Nelson Drive to the east. To the south, the 1962 Eichlers are found on Ferne Avenue, Ferne Court, and Briarwood Way.

Photography: Rory Earnshaw, Sunny Jefferson, Dave Weinstein; and courtesy Greenmeadow Community Association