eichler brochure
During our extensive Eichler research, and even before we’d considered buying in Sacramento, we discovered a real treasure –the original sales brochure, uploaded by fellow Eichler fans (now neighbors) who bought homes here before us.
Now we own here, it’s a treat to look through this 8-page brochure, containing photographs of homes just like ours, flanked with cool illustrations and surprisingly compelling copy, tempting 50s buyers to “live the California way”.
The kitchen shown above is exactly like ours, but laid-out in reverse, as is the view from the all-purpose room, below. Interesting to note how the “custom features” listed typically disappear from homes over the years.
As far as I know, the under-floor radiant heating has now failed in almost all 60-something Eichlers here. Ours apparently gave up relatively recently. Unpainted mahogany paneling is also rare, and cork floors obviously deteriorate.
The brochure also includes a map of the area and floorplans for the four original layouts. Being the Eichler nerd that I am, I downloaded images of all the pages and assembled a PDF of the full brochure, which you can read here.
Merle Duckett
Great brochure-BTW do you have any more info about the Air Cooling system that was original to these Sacramento houses. I live in Thousand Oaks in a “Gallery” model. I put in a “ductless” AC system last year for cooling and our radiant heat still works good. Our tract (103 houses) was built during 1964-68. Thanks for your informative posts!!
fogmodern
Thanks Merle! You know, I’ve wondered about the cooling system, but don’t have any info. A new HVAC system was installed in ours about seven years ago. Sadly, our radiant stopped working many years ago (though it lasted longer than most here). Our age homes had galvanized steel pipes, so almost all RH systems in our neighborhood are long gone. I’m aware of the Thousand Oaks tract, and hope to tour it at some point, when we venture south a little! Would love to see pics of your house –we looked at a gallery model of about that age (in Concord) during our search. Catch you soon…
Laurie Meisenheimer
What kind of replacement heating do most people have there? Our steel radiant pipes recently started leaking
Laurie
Andy
Hi Laurie. We’re no longer ‘here’ (it’s ‘there’ now, sadly) having moved back to the UK a while back. But oretty much the whole neighborhood has AC from ceiling/high wall vents with concealed ducting. A happy benefit of the original built-in swamp coolers (I believe). As far as I know, there is no working radiant in the neighborhood (including our place) built around 1955.