Did Eichler build two-storey homes in the San Mateo Highlands?

Yes. The December 1965 Yorktown brochure carries two two-storey plans by Claude Oakland: the SM-3, three bedrooms and two and a half baths, with the bedrooms and two balconies over a double-height living room; and the SM-4, four bedrooms and two baths with a multi-purpose room, which puts the living space upstairs where the view is. The single-storey SM-54 appears in the same brochure.

What did an Eichler in the San Mateo Highlands cost in 1965?

Someone at the sales office pencilled the prices onto this brochure's plan sheets in December 1965: $39,750 for the SM-3 and $41,500 base for the SM-4, which is also marked “Model”. Late-1950s Highlands Eichlers had sold between $17,950 and $21,950, so prices roughly doubled in seven years.

Brochure · 8 pages · pencilled “Dec ’65”

The Yorktown.

“Eichler homes in the San Mateo Highlands.” The late one, and the only brochure we have with handwriting on it. Whoever worked the sales office wrote the date on the cover and two asking prices on the plan sheets in ballpoint. That handwriting is the most commercially useful thing in the entire archive.

Download the whole brochure

PDF · 8 pages · 1.4 MB JPEGs · 8 files · 1.8 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.

Two prices, in pen

On the SM-3

$39,750

Three bed, 2½ bath, two storeys

On the SM-4

$41,500

“Base”, and marked “Model”

These are the two-storey plans. Seven Claude Oakland two-storeys were built on Yorktown Road, and these are almost certainly the drawings they came from. The two-storey houses →

Every page, in order

All eight sheets.

Click any page to open the full-size JPEG.

Brochure cover photograph of a two-storey Eichler with a shingled upper floor and a cantilevered balcony, captioned Eichler homes in the San Mateo Highlands. — Page 1 JPEG ↓ **Cover** — A **two-storey** house with a shingled upper floor and a cantilevered balcony — not the low glass-and-post Eichler of the postcards. Someone at the sales office wrote **DEC ’65** on it in ballpoint.

Brochure page headed EICHLER / LANDMARK OF TOTAL LIVING, two columns of text with no photographs. — Page 2 JPEG ↓ **Landmark of Total Living** — An essay page that never mentions a specification, a price or a plan. “Only in an Eichler is everything in its logical place — the fireplace, the walls of glass, the abundant storage areas, the kitchen and its component elements.”

Brochure spread of four photographs showing an Eichler kitchen and dining area with exposed beams, a globe pendant and an island cooktop. — Page 3 JPEG ↓ **Kitchen and dining** — Four frames of the thing Eichler was actually selling: a kitchen open to the dining area, open to the living room, open through glass to the deck. Note the island cooktop, the built-in dishwasher and the tongue-and-groove ceiling on exposed beams.

Brochure page headed THE HIGHLANDS, the delights of country living, with sections on community, education, shopping and recreation. — Page 4 JPEG ↓ **The community** — Dated by its own detail. San Francisco is now **“25 direct minutes away by freeway”** — I-280 had opened. Highlands Elementary is built and “about a 5-minute walk”; Borel Junior High and Aragon High by bus; Crystal Springs shopping a mile off, Hillsdale at three and a half.

Plan sheet for Eichler Plan SM-3, a two-storey three-bedroom house, with an elevation drawing above two floor plans and a price written in pen. — Page 5 JPEG ↓ **Plan SM-3** — **Two storeys, three bedrooms, 2½ baths.** Claude Oakland, A.I.A. Bedrooms and two balconies upstairs, looking down into a double-height living room. Pencilled in the margin: **39,750**.

Plan sheet for Eichler Plan SM-4, a two-storey four-bedroom house, with an elevation drawing above two floor plans and a price written in pen. — Page 6 JPEG ↓ **Plan SM-4** — **Two storeys, four bedrooms, two baths, multi-purpose room.** Inverted — living, dining, kitchen and a deck are all *upstairs*, where the view is. Pencilled: **$41,500 Base**, and below it, **Model**.

Plan sheet for Eichler Plan SM-54, a single-storey four-bedroom house, with an elevation drawing above the floor plan. — Page 7 JPEG ↓ **Plan SM-54** — **One storey, four bedrooms, two baths, multi-purpose room.** Bedrooms in a row along one flank, living 15′0″×18′10″, garage 19′2″×25′4″, a separate storage room and an entry patio. No price written on this one.

Brochure back cover with a black locator map showing the Highlands between Skyline Boulevard, Crystal Springs Road, Polhemus Road and Ralston Avenue. — Page 8 JPEG ↓ **The locator map** — The tract in black with its **entrance marked**, bounded by Skyline Boulevard, Crystal Springs Road, Polhemus Road and Ralston Avenue, with Crystal Springs Reservoir to the west. Arrows to San Francisco, San Mateo, Belmont, Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.

Pages five, six and seven

Three plans, all signed Claude Oakland.

Plan	Storeys	Rooms	How it is arranged	Pencilled
SM-3	Two	3 bed, 2½ bath	Bedrooms and two balconies upstairs, looking down into a double-height living room. Kitchen, living and dining, garage and entry court below.	$39,750
SM-4	Two	4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose	Inverted. Living, dining, kitchen, multi-purpose room and a deck all upstairs. Two bedrooms, garage and foyer below.	$41,500 base
SM-54	One	4 bed, 2 bath, multi-purpose	Bedrooms in a row along one flank. Living 15′0″×18′10″, dining, kitchen, garage 19′2″×25′4″, separate storage room, entry patio.	—

The inversion on the SM-4 is the whole argument for these houses in one drawing. On a flat Santa Clara lot you put the living space at grade and the bedrooms beside it. On a Highlands ridge lot you put the living space upstairs, because that is the floor with the reservoir out of the window.

Each sheet carries an area analysis block — living area, garage, total — printed at roughly five points. Our scans will not resolve those figures, so we have not published them. If you have an original and a loupe, tell us what they say.

What page four tells you about 1965

The community page reads as a dated document if you set it beside the earlier brochures. Here San Francisco is “25 direct minutes away by freeway.” In the 1950s it was thirty minutes “via scenic Skyline Boulevard.” I-280 had opened in between, and the copywriter updated the sentence.

The schools are built and named: Highlands Elementary, “about a 5-minute walk”; Borel Junior High and Aragon High by bus. In the earlier brochure the elementary school is a proposed site on a map. Schools now →

And the shopping is real rather than promised: Crystal Springs shopping center a mile away, Hillsdale at three and a half. The earlier brochure marks a “proposed 10-acre shopping center” on open ground. Seven years, and the drawings had become places.