Is this an Eichler? Photos. Work needed. Insight needed.

while there are a few one-offs (joe, egads, stephen or other historians will provide greater insight here), most eichler homes were built in tracts... with only a few floor plans per tract. meaning, look to your left, right and across the street. are there *exact* houses (save eventual renovations)?

i'd say "no", yours isn't... and if it was sold to you as such, you might have a bone to pick with the realtor.

while it's a neat mid-century ranch (with some modern characteristics), i'm not sure i'd even call it "mid century modern". seems to have too many provincial details... although many could have been added in a past renovation (crown moulding, etc.).

... and that's one biiiig bathroom. not a bad thing, but eichlers tended to be more on the modest side (as did most true mid century modern homes)... again, who knows how the house was built and there's nothing preventing you from taking even what was built as a more provincial home to more of a modern aesthetic.

best of luck.

Definitely not an Eichler. The giveaways are the hipped roof and shingles, exterior stucco walls, and interior drywall. Almost all the Eichlers were flat or low-pitched roofs, floor-to-ceiling glass across the entire back of the house, post-and-beam construction, vertically grooved wooden siding, and mahogany plywood interior walls. It's usually very obvious and sad when an Eichler's had these features removed and more traditional features added.

It's a nice 1950's ranch; you'll find tons of them up here in the Bay Area in nicer neighborhoods. Old Sunset magazines and books will give you hints on period details if you want that. You'll also find it much easier to find contractors who can work on the house because it's much more traditional construction.

BTW, if you're looking for design or decoration ideas, search around for books or web sites on "Cliff May" ranch-style homes. He was one of the architects doing custom ranch-style homes, and I suspect whoever built your house was inspired by him.

Robert

That is most definitely not an Eichler, and in any case there are no EIchler developments in Long Beach, CA. Eicher did build dozens of individual custom homes, but I am not aware of any in Long Beach.

Barry

We are in escrow and like it, but wonder what it is . . . 1581 Ramillo Long Beach.

We may need to do a lot of work on it. Is there anyone who can tell us about Eichler norms? We'd like to do work in the spirt of the classic homes (if it qualifies).

Am off to review the forum.

Sorry, but it's not even a "Likeler". If you want to stay true to the house, check out Atomic Ranch, both the book and the magazine. Other books you might want to check out include Ranch House Style (Samon), The Ranch House (Hess) and Ranch Houses: Living the California Dream (Weingarten).

Hi Barry, We just purchased a house in a small town in Northern California that has all the design elements of an Eichler. It sits alone on 6 acres so it is not in a developement. You mentioned that Eichler built dozens of individual custom homes, do you know how one might go about finding out if indeed this might be an Eichler? We are expecting that it is just a "knock off" but would be happily surprised, to say the least, if in fact it really was an Eichler.We do know the folks that built the house in 1963 were considered to be wealthy and had roots in Southern CA, so who knows, anything is possible :-) Thank you, Cindy