Location of Eichler Townhomes/Condos

There is a small PUD of Eichlers adjacent to the Greenmeadow tract, I think on the west side. I think you just follow Parkside St. (?) by the club and proceed west, they're just before the main road (dunno name) traffic signal(?)

markrobi - we lived in the same Eichler neighborhood in TO. In fact, if you lived on the corner of Stoddard and Camino Manzanas, I know who you are and we went to high school together. Our house was on Campbell Ave. I'm in the process of selling it now following my Dad's death. My Dad would have fainted at the thought of getting over $500K for the house.

ModFan - Thanks for the info. on locations..I'll check it out.

ColdHart 56 - DO give me a contact #/and or email address (complete). I'd like to chew the fat w/you. I can't figure out who you are..I can only remember Catena, Roach, Gibson and Bartoletti names in the neighborhood. There were many others. I pulled a hitch in the USAF after H.S. so I was 'outta CA after that....

PS> I contacted the N.P.H.S. website and emailed folks I knew quite well (back then) - not a peep back!!!!

Regards,
Mark

Mark - email me at coldhart56

Here's where I know there are Eichler townhomes or condos:

1. Santa Clara: Pomeroy Green and Pomeroy West, Benton at Pomeroy, ~1/2 mile East on Benton from Lawrence Expressway. Nice Claude Oakland one and two story plans, including one with an atrium; one of these tracts is a co-op, the other is a condo.

2. Palo Alto:
a. Ferne at Alma: a collection of single story townhomes with pitched roofs over the living areas
b. Greenmeadow Way at Alma: a slightly earlier tract of single story townhomes similar to (a)
c. Grant at Ash (off California): Two three level condominium buildings with flats of 2 and 3 bedrooms and central courtyards

3. San Francisco
a. Cathedral Hill: Highrise Jones&Emmons concrete condos at Cleary Court -- the Laguna Eichler tower
b. Cathedral Hill: across Cleary down the hill are Claude Oakland designed three level condo or co-op buildings with flats similar to the Grant/Ash Palo Alto building
c. Russian Hill: The Eichler Summit at 999 Green with a stunning view and super-plastic concrete base structure.
d. Visitacion Valley: Townhomes off Sunnydale called Geneva Terrace, similar plan to the Pomery two-story 4 bedroom plan but with a distinctly un-Eichler brick elevation -- an enlarged plan similar to this scheme is also in Diamond Heights as a single family home.

I'm not sure the Diamond Heights zero lot line houses count as condos -- Diamond Heights is all single family individual lots.

There may be a small late-60s townhomes in Sunnyvale off Hollenbeck near El Camino, adjacent to a definitely Eichler late 60s tract (with a large high-tension power line right of way down the middle of the street). Anyone know if the townhomes are Eichler built?

There may be others, but I don't know of them. If you do, please follow up.

/te

I had the occasion to be in Sunnyvale earlier today and checked the possibly Eichler townhome track out -- I am doubtful it is an Eichler Homes or JL Eichler project, although it is directly adjacent to the Eichler housing tract I mentioned from the late 60s. The townhomes are off Blair, while the Eichler houses are adjacent on Brookline, Piper, Pear, and Cumberland. Here's a yahoo map to the cross-street with Hollenbeck:

http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&ed=FOkv2ep_0TqztRjJDO6x6EhSx18...

The townhomes have flat and A frame roofs with open beam construction, but the beam tails are tapered to the fascia boards, and some of the detailing just doesn't look like any Eichler built product, even though there are globe lights, carports, and other details similar to the Pomeroy tracts. It could be another builder executing plans from one of Eichler's architects, or just a Like-ler builder aping the design of the adjacent houses. If it is Eichler, I'd be surprised, but it is not impossible that it is.

/te

More followup...

I contradicted myself in one sentence in my first posting about whether there are any Eichler Condos on Diamond Heights (SF) -- there are no Eichler condos there, all of the Eichlers are single family zero lot homes. In a correspondence with Marty A. (EN Editor/Founder) he confirmed this fact. Sorry for my confusing posting.

Marty went on to tell me (apropos of Eichler townhomes/condos):

In the design tradition of the 300 two-story single-family houses and townhouses of the early 1960s Eichler built in San Francisco’s Diamond Heights and Visitacion Valley, Eichler also built a small development of two-story townhouses, called Midrock, in Mountain View in 1971-‘72. Located on Midrock Court and adjacent Rock Street, the 23 modest-looking townhouses (“built to function as much as possible like a single-family house,” boasted the company’s original brochure) featured front elevations of sloping shingled roofs, dormer windows, window boxes, and Arcadia sliding-glass doors. “We did our best to make the development look good,” said Imada. “The interiors are actually very nice. Living rooms with a sloping ceiling and exposed beam and decking, a glass clerestory related to the fireplace, and the upstairs bedrooms have the usual Eichler beam and deck ceilings .”

I jotted over to see at lunch today, and must say that these townhomes are not really easy to recognize as Eichler built -- stucco predominates, and the roof pitches and dormers remind me of the "California contemporary" style townhomes being built in the same era where I lived as a kid, one of those "new towns" near Washington DC. To me, the Rock/Midrock townhomes seem to need a bit of deferred maintenance. But if you look closely, you can see the vaulted living room ceiling at the rear with full glass on one end unit. One is for sale (over $400K for a 2/1-1/2!), so the curious can inspect. After seeing these examples, which are far enough from mainstream Eichlers in design and detail, perhaps the Sunnyvale townhomes on Blair are Eichler built after all. Anyone live near there who might know?

/te

Hi group,

I am also interested in Eichler townhomes and condos, mainly because I would like to buy an eichler soon in the Bay Area, and a Condo is probably all that I am going to be able to afford

It was a nice day today, so I decided to visit some of the locations mentioned above.

First I went to see the two tracks at Benton & Pomeroy. As you drive down Pomeroy and hit Benton, you will see two tracks of housing either side of Pomeroy, before you cross the junction.

I'm not sure whether the ones on the left are even Eichlers (perhaps some more knowledgeable members of this group might like to comment). These two story buildings ceratinly share some of the architectural details but there seemed to be something missing here, even to a relatively untrained eye such as mine.

Can't say I was impressed, really quite a depressing block but I found something much nicer next.

On the otherside there are a number of small but nice one and two story dwellings, that look like classic Eichlers to me. This part of the neighborhood also seemed much cleaner, better maintained and it looks like the residents here (or most of them anyway) really seem to care (choices in door furniture etc.)

Next I went up to Palo Alto, first to Ferne and Alma. There are a sizeable number of well-kept big Eichler homes in this area. The condos face on to Alma and I suspect they were built as a buffer from the street for the bigger and more expensive homes behind.

There is a block of these single story townhomes either side of Ferne, with a pool complex on the right. They look nice, although rather cramped. The only thing that spoils them current is that someone has decided to erect a totally out of character 'Home Despot' fence along the back side of the track. Whoever did this must have been smoking crack.

There was one home here with an original grooved-siding fence but that was about to fall over. I did notice a Coldwell Banker sign offering homes to 'lease' here. Anyone know what this means? Do these small houses ever come on the market? Jumping back to that appalling fence, it looks as if someone (landlord?) decided to erect it accross several homes at once.

Next on the Greenmeadow and Alma, just along the street. Same set-up as Ferne but the houses look much better, with traditional fencing and original color schemes. Very nice but still small and cramped.

Finally I went into Palo Alto to find the 2 and 3 story condos at Grant and Ash. can't say I saw anything I recognized as an eichler around here but, again, perhaps some more expert members of this forum can correct me?

I took some shots of these locations, which can be found at:

http://homepage.mac.com/pramsbottom/PhotoAlbum13.html

These pictures are mostly of the neighborhoods in general, as I thought it would be a little rude to post close-ups of peoples houses. There are a couple which show some detail, and in these cases I have taken care to remove the house numbers, license plates etc. Please respect the residents of these neighborhoods and do not copy, repost and hot link to these shots.

I think I may track down the ones in Mountain View next. If anyone knows of any other townhouse/condo locations, please let me know and i will try to get to them.

Anyone have any thoughts on the value of these homes? I'm thinking probably $400K - $450K, maybe up to $550K in Palo Alto.

Cheers,

Paul.
[/b]

Paul,

Your Grant at Ash 1 is Eichler built. Number 2 is not, you seem to indicate you may know this. Nice pics, I think your valuation is about right. The Mountain View Rock/New Rock townhomes are also in the $400-450K range. Are you a buyer or a fan?

Yes, I'm both a huge fan and a potential buyer, probably in about a year.

My budget is about $450 - $500K, so a townhome is about all I am going to be able to get.

Off to see the Mountain View ones this weekend, will post some more pictures for the group.

I have read these posts re condos and towers in San Francisco. I am working on a book titled Highrise Living and would like to include a highrise by Eichler in this book.

Are there any original aprtments still around, does anyone have any contacts or leads in the Summit or the Laguna.

I have recntly had 2 book published
Modern Retro, RPS and Living Modern, Chronicle.

I look forward to some replies via e-mail etc. Thanks Andrew.

Hi Andrew:

If you are researching a book, I strongly suggest that you interview Catherine Munson as part of the information gathering process. She was one of Joe Eichler's original RE sales people and she still sells Eichlers and other Marin RE today. She would be able to steer you to some choice high-rises today, if they still exist. Catherine advertises in the RE section of this site.

Cathye

Finally returning to the group after just lurking for a year (been very quiet saving my pennies for my first Eichler).

Finally tracked down the townhouses on Rock St in Mountain View tonight, can't say I was overly impressed, although they are better than those white-faced 2-story co-ops on Benton, or that large apartment block in downtown PA.

If the Rock St ones were built by JE, then it must have been later on in his career. There are traces of his style but overall they are somewhat lacking. You can see the signature steep apex roof, and the interiors (what I could see) seem to have some reasoanably interesting features but nothing that really is in the true Eichler/modernist style.

If anyone else is interested, head down the Central Expressway until you hit Rengstorf, make a right, then right on Rock St and stop at Rock Court (a small enclave of faux mediteranean-style condos) on your right.

Stand in front of Rock Court, across the street is one development, there is also one that appears to be have built at the same time on your right.

Afterwards, I took a trip over to Nita, Thomas and all the ajoining streets to see the $600k+ homes I will never be able to afford (weep).

My email is [email protected]

Thanks,

Paul.

106 Ferne Ave, on the MLS, first showing was this Sunday.

A remodel, not great but some cosmetic tweaks could get it back on track.

Paul,

If you really want to own a house not a condo around 450k-550k, 1300 - 1600+ sq. ft. with courtyards check out the "like-lers" in Fremont Irvington area. There is a tract by Grimmer and Valpey Park Ave, Grimmer and Seneca Park and Grimmer and Yellow Stone Park.

good luck!
ji