Is It Really an Eichler? How to Tell Eichlers From Their Look-Alikes

Plenty of 1950s houses in Silicon Valley have low roofs, big glass and a blank face to the street. Not all of them are Eichlers. Several other builders worked the same modern vein, a few with the very same architects, and listings blur the line. Here’s what the records say about the most common look-alikes, and the details that tell them apart.

Monta Loma: three builders, one neighborhood

Mountain View’s Monta Loma is a good place to see the difference, because three builders put up contemporary homes side by side. The Monta Loma Neighborhood Association says Eichler came first, with more than 200 homes in a 1954 tract called Fairview. John Calder Mackay followed in 1955 and 1956 with more than 200 flat-tops in a tract called Oakwood, and the Mardell Building Company built Mardell Manor last. The association says the Mardells are indistinguishable from Eichlers and Mackays to the casual observer.

The association’s own comparison is the most useful field guide we’ve found:

• Ceilings: wood plank in Eichlers and Mardells; painted Celotex in Mackays.
• Walls: Philippine mahogany panels in Eichlers; drywall in Mackays and Mardells.
• Floors: vinyl tile in Eichlers; hardwood or asphalt tile in Mackays; hardwood in Mardells.
• Heat: radiant heat through steel pipes in the slab in Eichlers; a wall furnace or forced air in Mackays; forced air in Mardells.
• Foundation: slab only in Eichlers; about half the Mackays on slab and the rest on raised perimeter foundations; Mardells on raised perimeter foundations over a crawlspace.
• Garage and kitchen: a two-car garage or carport and a living-dining combination in Eichlers; a one- or two-car garage and a “family kitchen” in Mackays; a two-car garage and either a dining room or a family kitchen in Mardells.

In Monta Loma the quickest tell is underfoot. A crawlspace points to a Mackay or a Mardell. Forced air alone doesn’t settle it, because many Eichlers have had their radiant systems replaced. More in our Mackay and Mardell builder files and the Monta Loma guide.

Mackay elsewhere: the same architects

Mackay Homes hired Anshen & Allen, the firm behind Eichler’s first architect-designed houses. Palo Alto’s 2018 Eichler design guidelines say the firm was also hired to design modernist tract homes for John Calder Mackay, another merchant builder active in Palo Alto. Mackay’s best-documented modern tracts are Maywood, Fairmede and Sunshine Meadows in Santa Clara, and Sunshine Glen and Ross Park in Palo Alto. The Pacific Coast Architecture Database lists Sunshine Meadows and Sunshine Glen, both from 1952–53, as Anshen & Allen tracts that won AIA Merit Awards in 1954.

Rancho Rinconada: Stern & Price and Cliff May

East Cupertino’s Rancho Rinconada was built in the early 1950s by Stern & Price to designs by Cliff May, the architect best known for the California ranch house. In his oral history, May recalled the Cupertino tract as about 900 houses that sold out from four models. They’re low and single-story, but they’re Cliff May ranch-moderns, not Eichlers. More in our Stern & Price and Cliff May builder files.

Gavello Glen and Peremont: Anshen & Allen for other builders

Anshen & Allen designed for builders besides Eichler. In Sunnyvale, Gavello Glen, a tract on Gary Avenue, Gail Avenue and Old San Francisco Road recorded in 1948, used Anshen & Allen designs but wasn’t built by Eichler. In Saratoga, Peremont (1954–55, 36 homes) was built by Perego-Montgomery, also with Anshen & Allen designs. Neither is an Eichler tract, whatever a listing says. See the Anshen & Allen builder file.

How to confirm what you’re looking at

• Find the tract. The legal description in the deed or preliminary title report names the tract number; the recorded map shows who filed it. Our guide Who Built My House? walks through it.
• Check the city. Palo Alto and Sunnyvale have Eichler design guidelines, Cupertino has Eichler regulations for Fairgrove, and San Jose’s Eichler tracts are documented in a 2018 National Register study.
• Check the street. Our Silicon Valley Eichler tract index lists every tract we’ve confirmed, city by city, with links to each tract’s page.
• Look up and down. Plank ceilings, mahogany panels and a slab with radiant pipes are original Eichler details; drywall, hardwood and a crawlspace usually mean another builder, unless a remodel changed them.

Not sure what you’re looking at? Send us the address and we’ll tell you what the records show, or book a call with a Property Nerd.