Eichler 'Companion Piece'

As the 'Quarantine Spring' gives way to what many will experience as a 'Summer Staycation,' one thing homeowners can be thankful for is the opportunity for some quality time with a favored 'companion,' their homes.

To that end, it bears noting to mid-century modern homeowners that there's a periodical available that your 'companion' would just love for you to not only own, but also to consult frequently.

Don't be scanning the New York Times bestseller lists for this gem, because it's about as local as one can get. It's the Eichler Network's '2020 Eichler Network Home Maintenance Directory.'

Copies of the 2020 Directory are still available from the Eichler Network store by clicking here, and also free via the flip-book format online right here.

For each of the Network's annual directories, more than 100 experts—in two-dozen categories of improvement and maintenance of Northern California Eichler homes—come together, featured in entertaining and detailed profiles over its 36 glossy color pages.

To general contractor Craig Smollen of Smollen the Builder, the directory offers owners and vendors alike the opportunity "to have kind of communication where you know the terminology of modernism."

"They are looking for specialty skills, people who speak 'Eichler,'" he remarked of homeowners who find him from the directory and the Network. "They know they're in good hands if they go through the Eichler Network [Maintenance] Directory…They're preferred clients for me, because there's no catch-up to do."

The Network vetting and editing of the directory, led by publisher Marty Arbunich, has saved homeowners substantial money and aggravation over its 27 years, but perhaps most recently for clients who found San Mateo Eichler-specialty realtor Lara Morin Pierce.

"We were able to get them the same house, same lot for several hundreds of thousands of dollars less," Morin Pierce said proudly of some Eichler buyers' journey from house hunting in San Mateo to finding their price on a San Jose Eichler.