Joseph Eichler

Joseph Eichler (1900 - 1974) was a California-based, post-war residential real estate developer known for building tract homes in the Modernist style. His company, Eichler Homes, built over 11,000 homes between 1950 and 1974, mostly in the San Francisco bay area. During this period Eichler became the nation's largest builder of modern homes.

Related Topics:
1900 - 1974 - California - Post-war - Real estate developer - Modernist - 1950 - San Francisco

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Unlike many of the merchant builders, Joseph Eichler was obsessed with design. 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 Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. Eichler used well-known architects to design both the site plans and the homes themselves, including A. Quincy Jones and Raphael Soriano. Eichler also employed one of San Francisco's small but prominent modernist architectural firms, Anshen + Allen. At first, Anshen + Allen was his sole architects, but Eichler shortly brought in the firm Jones & Emmons, and Soriano as well. Eichler also built semi-custom designs for individual clients by commission. Due to soaring land prices by the mid-1960s redevelopment blossomed and Eichler began building low- and high-rise redevelopment projects in San Francisco's Western Addition and Bayview, and luxury high-rises and clustered housing on Russian Hill and Diamond Heights, along with the trendsetting co-op communities Pomeroy Green and Pomeroy West in Santa Clara.

Related Topics:
Glass - Mies van der Rohe - Frank Lloyd Wright - A. Quincy Jones - Raphael Soriano - 1960s - San Francisco - Western Addition - Bayview - Russian Hill

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