Vacation at an MCM Classic

Did you ever wonder what exactly inspired Joe Eichler to become the nation's most prolific and dedicated builder of modern homes?

Sure, it's well known that during the mid‐1940s Joe and his family lived in a home on the Peninsula designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that he loved—a home he soon began to emulate, using architects also inspired by Wright.

But let's get a little 'touchy feely' here. What was it about that Hillsborough home that got to Joe, living in it day after day, sleeping there, raising a family?

Why not come along with us for an experiment: recreate Joe's experience by living, at least for a few days, in the sort of home that got the builder going.

No, the Bazett house, where Joe had lived in the '40s, is not open for public stays. But several Usonian homes of the same sort are.

Indeed, throughout California, the nation, and the world many mid‐century modern residences are available for tourist stays, both as regular hotels and through various peer‐to‐peer rental sites, including Airbnb.

We'll focus here on a few from the very years when Joe was just starting out as a builder.

Spending a few nights in these special homes—which range in style and attitude—could help Eichler owners, and fans, learn something about the roots of their personal residences, experiencing the varied forms and streams of modernism that fed into the work of Eichler and his architects.

At least two of Wright's Usonian homes—the sort of home designed for everyman U.S.A. that inspired Eichler to enter the homebuilding field—are available as vacation rentals within minutes of each other in Galesburg, Michigan, near Kalamazoo.

The homes are part of Parkwyn Village, also known as the Acres, one of the first modern tracts built in the country, starting in 1948. The neighborhood has four homes designed by Wright (1867‐1959), who also laid out the development and had planned to design more homes there. The Michigan rentals are the Eppstein house, available through Airbnb; and the Meyer house, with a curved plan, through the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

These two homes should interest Eichler owners because they were designed and built in the late 1940s and early 1950s just as Joe himself was entering the field and making his mark.

Staying there just might put you into Joe's mind frame as he contemplated a new career path. What did Joe love about the Usonian look? The light? Textures and warmth? The freeform spaces? The angles?

Across the country there are other Wright homes available for tourist—or let's say, educational—rental as well. But let's move beyond Joe's immediate inspiration to other tendencies in modern architecture that also fed into the look and feel of the Eichlers.