San Mateo Eichlers / Open questions
Our working file · Updated as we learn
What we don't know.
Most neighbourhood pages read as though everything is settled. Almost nothing about this tract is. We think publishing the gaps is more useful than papering over them — it tells you how much weight to put on what we do say, and occasionally somebody reading it turns out to have the answer.
We will credit contributions and cite them properly. Original brochures, plan sets, purchase paperwork, construction photographs, title reports with a tract name, family recollection — all of it is evidence.
The list
Fourteen open items.
- 01The construction increments. No source anywhere documents this tract being built in numbered increments or units. Eichler tracts elsewhere are routinely described that way; nothing comparable exists in print for the Highlands. This is the single biggest documentation gap. Recorded subdivision maps would fix it.
- 02A reconciled home count. 650 versus 700-plus, between two credible authorities. The working paper →
- 03Recorded map volume and page references for either tract. Not published online anywhere we could find. Must be pulled from County records.
- 04Which plan numbers map to which streets, years or architects. We have the plan numbers and we have the architects. No source connects them — except SM-3 and SM-4, which are Claude Oakland's, from the 1965 brochure. What we do have →
- 05Model names. We found exactly one in San Mateo: "the Yorktown." Eichler generally used plan numbers, so there may be few others — but we cannot confirm their absence.
- 06Original sale prices for anything beyond the five SM-series plans in the one price brochure. Nothing at all for 19th Avenue Park, nothing for the 1965 Claude Oakland models, nothing for the two-storey models.
- 07The Recreation District's exact property tax share, annual budget and per-parcel amount. Not published on its site; the document that would contain budget figures was not retrievable. Board minutes are the place.
- 08Highlands Community Association dues. Not published. The only figure on record is that about 48% of residents pay them.
- 09The X-100's square footage, bedroom count and first sale price — 2,310 or 2,190; four bedrooms or three; $47,000 or $60,000. Three separate disagreements in the file of the best-documented Eichler in the county. All four disputes →
- 10The UCLA reference. A forum contributor cites box 1390, folder 9 of the A. Quincy Jones papers as containing "Eichler homes / with breathtaking views in the Highlands. San Mateo." The collection is real — LSC.1692, 33.5 linear feet, 67 boxes plus 1,800 oversize, 1942–79 — but we could not confirm that specific box and folder from the online finding aid. Call them.
- 11Period newspaper coverage. No period San Mateo Times article was retrievable online. The County Historical Association holds San Mateo Times photographic special collections but its listed newspaper runs do not include the Times itself. A genuine archival gap requiring an in-person visit or a paid database.
- 12Whether 19th Avenue Park has any original atriums. Given the 1953–55 dates, almost certainly not — but both dedicated sources are silent and we cannot confirm a negative. That tract →
- 13MLS verification of the sales data. Every sale figure on this site comes from public sold records, single-sourced. Portal alternatives were either blocked or returned nothing usable. Stated on the market page too →
- 14The Aaron Green "Arrow" drawings. Single-sourced, never built, whereabouts unknown. The story →
Next actions
Where we are looking, and where you could.
1. The X-100 nomination form
The National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the X-100, dated 3 May 2016 (listed 20 June 2016, ref. 16000381). Nomination forms run twenty to forty pages and contain exactly what is missing here: a full physical description, a construction chronology, plan analysis, an architectural context section that would almost certainly discuss the surrounding tract and its increments, and a bibliography of period sources including newspapers.
This is the highest-value single document outstanding. Request it from the National Park Service NRHP reference desk or the California Office of Historic Preservation.
2. Recorded subdivision maps
San Mateo County publishes Assessor's maps and recorded subdivision maps (RSM) free online through its property-maps viewer at gis.smcgov.org/apps/raster — Property Maps tab, Subdivision Maps (PM/RSM). Parcels can be found by address or APN; recorded maps are retrieved by volume and page. In person: County Recorder, 555 County Center, 1st Floor, Redwood City, CA 94063 — (650) 363-4500, Monday to Friday, for a fee.
The catch, and it is the whole reason this is still open: there is no search by subdivision name. You cannot type "Highlands" and get the tract's recorded maps. The route is to identify Eichler-era parcels by address, read each one's recorded-map volume and page off the parcel record, then pull those maps and sum the lots. It is a parcel-by-parcel job rather than a lookup, which is presumably why nobody has published the answer.
Done properly it closes items 01, 02 and 03 at once, and the same method would test the claim that the 19th Avenue Park land was originally Leslie Salt Company's, developed through a subsidiary called Concord Ranch Properties.
3. The archives
San Mateo County Historical Association Archives — (650) 299-0104. Appointments Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, at least two days ahead, one group at a time. Holdings from 1830: 300,000-plus photographs and negatives including San Mateo Times special collections, complete runs of several county papers, around 1,500 volumes including city directories, manuscripts, ledgers and microfilm. Ask specifically what San Mateo Times material exists beyond the photo collection.
UCLA Library Special Collections — A. Quincy Jones papers, Collection LSC.1692. (310) 825-4988. Advance requests required. Ask them to check box 1390, folder 9.
City of San Mateo California Collection and San Mateo County Libraries newspaper databases — the obvious place for San Mateo Times microfilm, and a library card may reach period coverage that is paywalled elsewhere.
San Mateo County Planning & Building for permit history, plus the Historic Resources Ordinance (Article 8) and the Historic Resources Advisory Board.
Highlands Recreation District, 1851 Lexington Avenue — board meets the second Tuesday monthly, and the minutes are where the tax share and budget live.
Talk to us
Can you close one of these?
A brochure in a drawer, a plan set in a garage, a photograph of the street under construction, a grandparent who bought here in 1957 — any of it is worth more than another website repeating the same paragraph. We will credit you and cite it properly.