Eichler's X-100 Goes Online - Page 2

Arbunich swears that the "your money too" line surely must have been aimed at him and his restoration spending spree that would follow 60 years later. As proof, much of Arbunich's work on the X-100 is documented in one of the new website's most striking features—a slide show documenting the X-100 Renewal Project in its 'Gallery of Improvements.'

"We knew that spending $350,000 on the renewal process wasn't going to happen out of the starting gate," Arbunich said of financial constraints during the early years of ownership. "But it followed over time."

With the launch of the new site in mid-June, 11 phases of renewal are now complete and illustrated, he said, admitting, "It was really exciting for me to see in photos how the X-100 became transformed, from beginning to end, during the renewal phase. It's a beautiful thing to see."

"The only things we removed from the house in that process were the added garage door and metal exterior siding, and the backyard fence and aggregate deck," he summarized of the renovation project. Nodding to the website photo of the decidedly non-modern garage door added by a previous owner in the 1970s, he shuddered, "It makes me cringe today to look at that particular 'before' photo—but I'm so happy that we wound up scrapping that thing for good."

"There are some rare photographs in there," the San Francisco native said proudly of the website, citing in particular a pair of shots from 1956 of architects A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons inspecting the X-100 construction site.

Noting the wealth of rarely seen X-100 historical content still in his archive, Arbunich adds, "We could have gone crazy expanding the website, even documenting all that extensive national press about the home that came about in the 1950s. But we had to draw the line somewhere—at least for now."

"Marty knew exactly what he wanted" [with the direction of the website], says Voyvodich, whose extensive resume includes a stint as cultural programs director at the Presidio Trust in San Francisco. Noting that her professional passion is "to tell a really good, clear story," she said of the X-100 tale, "It is all worth the passion. It was all a labor of love."

Despite a few goals for the historic home still on the table—including meeting up with that appreciative modernist who will eventually succeed Marty as the next owner—Arbunich admits, "I could pretty much walk away from the X-100 right now with no regrets, because I've done all that I had mapped out to get done as owner."

So if you want a deep dive into California mid-century modern history, check out the new Eichler X-100 website—and feel both Joe Eichler's and Marty Arbunich's passion for this grand residential experiment.

The new X-100 website is free of ads and cookies and, as Arbunich promises, "I plan to keep it that way."