The B'game Historical Society held its quarterly meeting on Thursday night and drew a Standing Room Only crowd to the Lane Room at the library. Staff brought in an additional row of chairs that were snapped up immediately and it remained SRO until the end. What was the attraction? Eichlers.
I've highlighted B'game's cluster of Eichlers before but the new draw was Menlo Park realtor-turned-developer Monique Lombardelli who brought her video documentary about the history, evolution and community spirit that lives on in Eichler neighborhoods around the Bay Area. As the link points out
Lombardelli’s filming at one house, an important place to Joe Eichler, led to an exciting development. That was the Bazett House, in Hillsborough, the Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home that Eichler rented from 1943 to 1945. It was here that Eichler first felt the power of modern architecture. Inspired, he began building modern tract homes a few years later.
Today, Lombardelli lives in the Bazett House just as Eichler did, renting a portion of it from the family that has owned it since 1945. “I want to live here,” she told the owners.
Monique noted that there are about 100 Eichlers in B'game and about 900 in San Mateo with about 11,000 spread throughout the Bay Area. The post-WWII housing crisis when demand outstripped supply from returning soldiers and materials shortages led Eichler to evolve his designs. As Wikipedia notes
Eichler homes are from a branch 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 indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Eichler Homes 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 glass windows with glass transoms looking out on protected and private outdoor rooms, patios, atriums, gardens, and swimming pools.
Monique is now in planning mode to build some Eichler-style houses herself on a 3.2 acre plot in Portola Valley. I wish her luck and appreciate the knowledge the video gave to the 100+ attendees.
Interesting article on the front page of the Tuesday Daily Post:
"Construction will continue on Palo Alto's Edgewood Plaza and the developer, which illegally tore down a historic Eichler building it had promised to restore, won't be fined just yet, the City Council said yesterday.
Torn by conflicting desires to penalize the developer and deliver residents the finished grocery store plaza they were promised, the council voted 6-3 last night to allow Sand Hill Properties to continue with construction, which includes restoring a second remaining Eichler building and constucting six of the ten houses in the original plan."
Must be something else going on since I don't get why issueing a fine and allowing continued construction are "in conflict"--why not just do both?
That was a side topic of the joint Planning Commission-City Council meeting in the next post up--how and how much to fine for violations. Lot's of overthinking went on there too.
Posted by: Joe | March 07, 2013 at 11:11 AM
I almost forgot to post a recent Examiner article about Monique Lombardelli's latest venture. I check with her to verify that there are no Doelgers in B'game, but the story is interesting nonetheless:
A pair of local, independent filmmakers will soon release “Little Boxes: The Legacy of Henry Doelger,” a short documentary about the architecture of Daly City’s Westlake neighborhood and the developer who built it.
The documentary’s name is a reference to folk singer Malvina Reynolds’ 1962 song, “Little Boxes,” a critique of suburban America famously inspired by the houses of Westlake.
Filmmakers Rob Keil and Monique Lombardelli say they are fascinated with the midcentury modern architecture pioneered by developers like Doelger, and they find it ironic that such unique homes inspired Reynolds to sing about houses “made of ticky tacky” that “all look the same.”
Keil said that, contrary to what the song implies, Doelger’s homes were well built, with an emphasis on individuality. Describing the typical Doelger home, Keil said, “It was a box, but it was a really well-designed box…Doelger was very conscious of the need to make houses look different from each other.”
The rest of it is here:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/filmmakers-to-release-documentary-on-influential-daly-city-developer/Content?oid=2648937
Posted by: Joe | December 20, 2013 at 07:12 PM
Here is your chance to see some Eichlers from the inside:
http://eichlerhometour.org/the-tour/
Posted by: Joe | April 19, 2014 at 02:10 PM