Who designed the Eichler homes in the San Mateo Highlands?

The Brandywine brochure credits two firms by name: Jones & Emmons and Anshen & Allen. The later Yorktown brochure of December 1965 credits Claude Oakland, who signed the SM-3, SM-4 and SM-54 plan sheets as Architect, A.I.A.

How big is an Eichler in the San Mateo Highlands?

The Brandywine brochure publishes three: Plan 1454 at 1,822 sq ft of living area plus a 501 sq ft garage; Plan 1414 ALT at 1,817 sq ft with a 300 sq ft atrium, a 305 sq ft garage and a 200 sq ft carport; and Plan 101 at 1,838 sq ft with a 320 sq ft atrium and a 452 sq ft garage. Eichler counted the atrium separately from living area.

San Mateo Eichlers / The Brandywine

Brochure · 12 pages · circa 1959–60

The Brandywine.

“Enter the Wonderful World of Eichler.” The grandest of the three, and the one with the most architecture in it. It credits the architects, publishes square footage, prints a twelve-award honour roll, and carries the tract map that names four separate Eichler subdivisions inside the Highlands.

Download the whole brochure

PDF · 12 pages · 1.7 MB JPEGs · 12 files · 2.8 MB

Scanned by us from our own copy — the PDF is the whole booklet, the JPEGs are one file per page. Single pages download from the JPEG ↓ link under each scan below. Free to use. If you are researching this tract, take it.

The map on page five

Page five is the single most useful sheet in our whole archive. Eichler's own map labels Brandywine, Lexington, Ticonderoga and Yorktown as named phases of the Highlands. Every secondary account we have read treats this tract as one undivided thing. The tract map, redrawn →

Every page, in order

All twelve sheets.

Click any page to open the full-size JPEG. The transcriptions below each one are ours; where the print is too small for our scan to resolve, we say so rather than guess.

Brochure cover: a charcoal perspective drawing of a hallway opening onto an orange-lit courtyard, lettered in chartreuse. — Page 1 JPEG ↓ **Cover** — “Enter the Wonderful World of Eichler.” Charcoal, chartreuse and orange, and a perspective that puts you inside the house looking out at a courtyard. No photograph, no price, no plan — just the idea.

Brochure spread headed A Wonderful World of Beauty and A Wonderful World of Luxury, with three interior and exterior photographs. — Page 2 JPEG ↓ **Beauty and luxury** — The architects are credited here and nowhere else in the brochure: **Jones & Emmons and Anshen & Allen**. “Simple Elegance” is attributed to an artist customer. Note “open-to-the-sky inner courtyard” — the atrium, in Eichler's own words.

Brochure spread headed A Wonderful World of Convenience, with four photographs and an orange globe graphic. — Page 3 JPEG ↓ **Convenience** — “The carefully developed Eichler floor plans create more usable living space, inside and out, than is offered in any other home.” The globe motif runs through the brochure — Eichler was selling a world, not a subdivision.

Brochure page headed Live in America's Most Honored Home, listing national awards beside a photograph of a desk globe. — Page 4 JPEG ↓ **The honour roll** — Twelve national awards between 1951 and 1959, printed in full. The list usually quoted online has five. The latest date on it is what dates this brochure. The full table below →

Brochure page headed in The Highlands of San Mateo, with a tract map naming Brandywine, Lexington, Ticonderoga and Yorktown. — Page 5 JPEG ↓ **The tract map** — **The most useful sheet in the archive.** Eichler's own map labels four named subdivisions inside the Highlands — Brandywine, Lexington, Ticonderoga and Yorktown — plus Highlands School built, a junior high “proposed” on Bunker Hill Drive, and the 19th Avenue Freeway as a dashed line. Redrawn →

Brochure page headed Imaginative New Floor Plan Concepts, showing Plan 1454 with two photographs. — Page 6 JPEG ↓ **Plan 1454** — 4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose room, 2-car garage. **1,822 sq ft living area, 501 sq ft garage.** “A large parlour and two areas for dining” — and a built-in barbecue in the private garden.

Brochure page showing Plan 1414 ALT and Plan 101 with square footage, beside a photograph of a family dining outdoors. — Page 7 JPEG ↓ **Plans 1414 ALT and 101** — Both with atriums, and Eichler prints the atrium's square footage separately: **300 sq ft** on the 1414 ALT, **320 sq ft** on the 101. The 1414 ALT also has a **loggia** and both a garage and a carport.

Brochure spread headed Enter the Wonderful World, with interior photographs and a blank line for the Eichler representative's name. — Page 8 JPEG ↓ **Choose the home, choose the lot** — The order form, effectively. “EICHLER REPRESENTATIVE: ____ · TELEPHONE: **Fireside 1-1287**” — a San Mateo exchange, so by this printing there was someone on site rather than only in Palo Alto.

Brochure page headed The Soundest Investment You Can Make For Your Family's Future, with photographs of children and a woman playing badminton. — Page 9 JPEG ↓ **The resale pitch** — The builder selling appreciation in its own brochure: “terrific resale values … which in some cases have been as much as **40% in excess of the original price.**” It also lists the neighbours by profession, which reads as very much of its period.

Brochure spread headed Step Into the Wonderful World of Better Living in an Eichler Home, printed on a salmon-pink ground. — Page 10 JPEG ↓ **The circulation principle** — “Unique Eichler Homes floor plan lets you enter the living room, multi-purpose room and bedrooms *without crossing through any other room.*” And the glass wall: “an ever-changing mural — provided by nature!”

Brochure page describing the multi-purpose room, kitchen, Shoji closet doors and weather-conditioning, with two photographs. — Page 11 JPEG ↓ **The specifications** — Arcadia sliding doors, Thermador range and oven, Waste King dishwasher and disposer, **patented Shoji sliding closet doors** — removable for cleaning — imported Philippine mahogany panelling, Fiberglas in roof and walls, and **Rusco** sliding steel windows.

Brochure back cover, a chartreuse and charcoal map of the San Francisco Bay Area marking six Eichler communities. — Page 12 JPEG ↓ **Six communities** — The whole company on one map: **The Highlands** in San Mateo, Greenridge in the East Bay, Terra Linda Valley in Marin, Fairbrae in Sunnyvale, Fairglen in San Jose, Fairgrove in Cupertino. Head office: **2151 St. Francis Drive, Palo Alto, DA 1-1720**. The Highlands is the only San Mateo County entry.

Pages six and seven

Three plans, with the square footage printed on them.

Plan	Rooms	Living area	Atrium	Garage	What the brochure says
1454	4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose	1,822	—	501	“A large parlour and two areas for dining.” Built-in barbecue in the private garden.
1414 ALT	4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose, atrium, loggia	1,817	300	305 + 200 carport	Formal dining opening to the rear patio; entry from the garage straight into kitchen and multi-purpose room.
101	4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose, atrium	1,838	320	452	Floor-to-ceiling glass both sides of the parlour, sliding out to atrium and rear patio.

Two things to take from this table. Eichler published the atrium as measured square footage and counted it apart from living area — 300 and 320 square feet. And he called the living room a “parlour”, with the British spelling. On the atrium → All the plans →

Page four

Twelve national honours, 1951 to 1959.

Under the headline “Live in America's Most Honored Home.” The list usually quoted online has five entries. This is the whole thing, as printed — and its latest date, 1959, is what dates the brochure.

Year	Award	For
1951	Southwest Research Institute, Housing Research Foundation	Developments best exemplifying the quality house program
1951–59	Parents' Magazine National Merit Award	Best home for families with children — eight years: 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959
1953	Life Magazine Award of Merit	Good space planning, attractive design
1954	National Association of Home Builders of U.S.	Merit, residential planning and design
1955	Living Magazine Award	—
1956–57	A.I.A. — House & Home, Sunset Magazine	Merit, homes for better living
1957	U.S. Department of Commerce	Citation
1958	McCall's Magazine	Most wanted features in a home
1958	House & Home Magazine Award of Merit	Outstanding contribution to quality housing
1958	American Builder Magazine Award	Excellence of design and construction
1956–59	American Institute of Architects, Sunset Magazine	Merit, outstanding design
1959	AIA–NAHB Award of Honor	Outstanding cooperation between builders and architects in producing better home design and community planning

Lines worth keeping

The circulation principle, page ten. “Unique Eichler Homes floor plan lets you enter the living room, multi-purpose room and bedrooms without crossing through any other room.” That is a diagram stated as a sales line, and it is why Eichler plans feel larger than their square footage.

The resale claim, page nine. “Terrific resale values … which in some cases have been as much as 40% in excess of the original price.” The builder was selling appreciation in 1959. What they trade for now →

The glass wall, page ten. “An entire wall of glass by Pittsburg presents an ever-changing mural — provided by nature!”

The sales office, page eight. “EICHLER REPRESENTATIVE: ____ · TELEPHONE: Fireside 1-1287.” A San Mateo exchange — by this printing someone was on site. The back cover gives head office as 2151 St. Francis Drive, Palo Alto, DA 1-1720.