Diane and Bob Reklis bought an Eichler home in Palo Alto's Palo Verde neighborhood in 1979 and raised three daughters there. Eichler houses are sleek, single-story, modernist tract homes with open layouts and floor-to-ceiling glass doors that foster indoor-outdoor living. Joseph Eichler's company mass-produced nearly 11,000 Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired residences in California between the late 1940s and the 1960s to meet postwar demand. Eichlers are commonly clustered across the Bay Area, especially San Jose, Contra Costa County, the Peninsula and Marin. Many owners are designers, artists and other creative professionals. Notable figures connected to Eichler neighborhoods include Douglas Engelbart and Steve Jobs, who praised their clean, simple design.
The pair are among a very special and enthusiastic group of Bay Area homeowners. They live in what have become known simply as "Eichlers" - the sleek, single-story tract homes that could be the setting for an episode of "Mad Men." From the late 1940s to the 1960s, pioneering developer Joseph Eichler and his company mass-produced nearly 11,000 of these Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired residences in the Bay Area and other parts of California to support a booming post-World War II population.
In the Bay Area, there are Eichlers everywhere, usually clustered together in San Jose, Contra Costa County, the Peninsula and Marin County. Among Eichler owners, there are a fair number of designers, artists and other creative types. Palo Verde, for example, was home to engineer Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, while Steve Jobs grew up near Eichler homes in Mountain View and once said their "clean and simple" design inspired his vision for the first Apple products.
But they were drawn to the Eichler brand of stylish, affordable modernist homes. They especially loved the open layout, with floor-to-ceiling glass doors that opened onto the side and back yards, encouraging that California concept of year-round indoor-outdoor living. "When the kids got roller blades for Christmas, and it was raining, we could let them rollerblade up and down the halls, because there were no carpets. It was great for families," Diane Reklis said.
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