Any Castro Valley folks here?

Hi Dan,

I'm Nancy and I have lived on Greenridge for 25 years. I'm glad you like the neighborhood, and hope you find something you like in the near future.

My house has the carport, which means that it is a four bedroom with a galley kitchen with sliding door at the end and fireplace in the center of the living/dining room surrounded by glass. The houses which do not have car ports are, for the most part, four bedroom with the window over the kitchen sink and the fireplace more to the corner of the living room. There are also some without carports that are different and a few wit carports that are also different. The majority, I think, are as described above. Someone else might be able to give you more info.

Hope to have you as a neighbor soon.

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I've noticed there are quite a few people on Greenridge that have lived there 20-30 years. That says a lot.

Is this your floorplan?

Do you know which architect designed the Castro Valley houses and what year they were built?

Thanks,

Dan

Hi,

Yes. That's my floor plan. I live on the right-hand side coming up Greenridge. I have 2/3 of an acre (flat with lawn and a canyon on one side). There are a few large lots on my side of the street; however, the people on the other side have a view of the bay, which is great, except they have to keep their windows covered during the day because of the son exposure.

I'm also on Greenridge on the left side of the street, up the hill. My floor plan is a little different from Nancy's. I have a floor plan somewhere on my computer and will look for it later so I can post it here. My roof line is the low sloping roof.

Claude Oakland designed my model. I don't know if he did the whole neighborhood or just a few of the dozen or so different models found in this neighborhood. Mine is a four bedroom model with a "hobby room" off the kitchen. My sister-in-law and her family live down the street in a flat-roof model with essentially the same floor plan as mine except that the hobby room is absent. That model has a sliding glass door where the entrance to the hobby room would be so the square footage is just a bit smaller. Mine is 1901 and theirs is around 1850 or 1860... something like that.

This far up the hill we don't have the view that the lower part of the hill has, though I can see the bay from my roof. :-) I don't keep my windows covered even though there is a lot of afternoon sun coming into the living room. I prefer the view of my yard and can deal with a little sun - I moved into this house because it was so bright and sunny. Good plantings offer enough shade to make it pleasant.

We do have a lot of long-term residents in the neighborhood, but there are a lot of younger families moving in which makes for a nice mix. We've been here for about two years and have really enjoyed getting to know our neighbors, young and old.

Nancy/Tracy,

I hope it's okay to post pictures of other's houses; I've removed any identifying numbers. If anybody objects to me posting these, please let me know and I'll remove the picture immediately.

I think there are 5 different Eichler models in Castro Valley. The different ones I see are:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Full-size images are available here:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4288150077

Nancy, I'm guessing your house is like #1 and, Tracy, I'm guessing your house is like #4. Am I close? :wink: Are there any other styles I missed?

Dan,

Mine is #2. There is one next to me that has a carport and is a three bedroom. It is the smallest one in the subdivision, and there aren't too many.

Are you saying that's actually your house, or yours is the same as #2? :wink:

No, like mine. Mine is white and light gray and has a really large front yard.

Nancy/Tracy,

On a slightly different topic: I noticed a couple of second-story additions in the neighborhood. Does the neighborhood have a planning or homeowner's organization?

Thanks,

Dan

There is no association in this neighborhood that governs planning issues. I have heard that there is a homeowner's association but I've never seen any actual evidence of this - no meeting announcements, invitations to events, etc. If they're out there they don't seem to be very active.

My house is like #4 in your examples and I love it. I think you did miss a couple of styles, but that's basically it. There are a few courtyard models and one house that my husband thinks must have been redesigned to fit the sloping, wedge-shaped lot down the hill. There are at least two others that I think are one-of-a-kind for this neighborhood - not necessarily one-of-a-kind Eichlers, but not duplicated here, as far as I can tell. It's been a while since I drove around specifically checking out how many models there were. The Eichlers are mostly on Greenridge, but there are others on Crown Court, Badger Court, Highwood, Cotton Ct (off of Highwood) and just a few on Mountain just as you turn right off of Greenridge. I think that's all the streets.

Thanks for the info, Tracy. Is this your floorplan?

No, mine is GR-4, which wasn't on-line last time I checked. It was e-mailed to me by Marty who keeps an archive of the floor plans. It is similar to the one above with the following differences at first glance (I didn't study it in detail - I'm suppposed to be cooking dinner right now): entrance to and layout of master bathroom are oriented differently. In the living room I can't quite make out the wording but I'm assuming that's a fireplace between the living room/dining room, in which case there's a difference there. My fireplace is on the exterior wall, making the dining room/living room/loggia one big room with posts giving a slight visual separation to the loggia. I don't like that location for a dining room although it would have an outdoor view so we use it as a large living room. We use the multi-purpose room as a dining room and it has a nice view of the atrium. Also, there appears to be a solid wall at the rear of the hobby room and ours is glass. The only non-glass wall is in the master bedroom on either side of the sliding glass doors. The front door is also set back a few feet from the front edge of the house and there are clerestory windows over the garage, but not on the other side of the front door.

hi dan, nancy & tracy,

great informative discussion regarding c.v. eichlers. my wife and i too hope to move in an eichler home in the castro valley area.

hope to be your neighbor this summer.
ji

There is a homeowners' assn. (I'm on the Board), but we haven't had a meeting in a long time. We do canvass the neighborhoods at intervals to see if there are any county code violations (shrubs out in the sidewalk, illegal fencing, etc.), but our being able to enforce anything is limited. We use to have an assn. member discount for bulk trash pickup once a year, but now Waste Management provides free pickup for that. Also, we had an annual 4th of July party and Christmas party. Mary Drag of our neighborhood was the spearhead of all this, but she (turning 80 this week) just isn't up to it anymore. We do use our treasury money for the upkeep of our neighborhood entrance shrubs and monitor any construction that comes up in our neighborhood.

It's my favorite Eichler plan.
I guess it's built in the 1000 Oaks tract or one of the Orange County tracts with the fireplace in a different location.

Tracy,

My wife and I looked at the house for rent at 5655 Greenridge today. The floorplan sounds like your sister-in-law's, with a sliding door off the kitchen where you have a hobby room. The house looks basically sound, with original wood paneling, globe fixtures and kitchen cabinets, but years of rental abuse show. It needs a lot of work. We wouldn't mind buying the place to fix it up, assuming we got it for a good price, but the landlord/owner sounds unreasonable, at least according to the current tenant. What a shame.

Dan

That's too bad, Dan. I believe that same house was up for rent about a year ago. I haven't been inside it.

I wanted to address something you said in an earlier post. I think it was you who mentioned seeing quite a few second-story additions in this neighborhood. I drove around to double-check because I didn't remember seeing very many. I think what you saw were the sections of the development that were originally set aside for small parks. They were later sold and developed with non-Eichlers. Most of them are two-story homes and several are Eichlerish in style. So, driving up Greenridge, you'll see about four or five spots where there are two or three non-Eichlers in a row.

It looks like there are about two or three of the Eichlers with second-story additions out of the 200 or so in the development.

Overall, I think that most of the homes are original or close to it with minor cosmetic changes like paneled garage and front doors on the exterior. I can't vouch for the interiors, but the ones I've been inside have been original or close to it with the occasional exception.

I've been hoping for some open homes to check out, but there haven't been any for a couple of months.

Yes, the current tenants have been there a year. They say the owner is not interested in putting any money in the place. That being the case, it's got a lot of originality, but it needs to be restored or updated.

I said "a couple". I was referring to the two houses next to each other on the left side of Greenridge as you come up the hill. I agree, it's not a lot, but I was just asking if there was any organizational enforcement in place to keep things like this from happening in the future, like some other Eichler neighborhoods have. I wouldn't mind signing a neighborhood restrictions agreement (when we buy a place) if others would as well. :wink:

I said "a couple". I was referring to the two houses next to each other on the left side of Greenridge as you come up the hill. I agree, it's not a lot, but I was just asking if there was any organizational enforcement in place to keep things like this from happening in the future, like some other Eichler neighborhoods have. I wouldn't mind signing a neighborhood restrictions agreement (when we buy a place) if others would as well. :wink:

Sorry. I was too lazy to go back and read the post again. If I sounded defensive it was unintentional. I do have a lot of neighborhood pride and I think that the people who sort of dismiss some of the smaller Eichler developments are missing out on some beautiful neighborhoods. Clearly you're not one of those people since you've chosen this area.

As for those houses, hen we moved in here I thought those two houses were Eichlers, but the more I look at them the more I think that they might never have been Eichlers. Some day I'll have to work up the nerve to stop and talk to the owners. I took another drive around specifically to count two-story additions and I only found two - both on Highwood next to each other. There's another house with a covered atrium that can be seen from the road and I've heard that it has some sort of lift mechanism to raise it. Apparently the owners used to enjoy breakfast up there at roof level.

I would be happy to see some rules in place to preserve the beauty of the neighborhood. :)

Dan,
We live across the street and up a little ways from the house for rent. Ours is the same floorplan, and we have been there a little over a year and are very happy. I have not seen the inside of that house, but it sounds like a decent start. I'd rather start out with a neglected original, then one with a horrible remodel. I would try and speak with whoever owns it, and even if they don't want to sell right now, maybe they will get frustrated if the thing doesn't get rented quickly.

Good Luck!,

John T

Hi John,

Yeah, I concur. I'd rather have a run-down original than somebody's idea of an "improvement" on the original design. I've gone back and forth with the owner, and he claims he doesn't want to sell because "he raised his kids in that house." Sounds like BS to me.

We're keeping our eyes open and driving through the neighborhood every weekend. If you see a red '65 Alfa Romeo sedan driving slowly up Greenridge, please wave. That's me. :wink:

Cheers,

Dan

I did a little searching and came up on this old post. Dan I hope you found your Castro Valley Eichler.
We just bought/moved in back in October '05 and love it here. All the neighbors are great.
I live on the left side of Greenridge with a view of the bay.

http://www.elitevirtualtours.net/GreenridgeRoadTour/

This is an Anshen and Allen E101 plan although Claude Oakland was the one who designed it while working with A&A in 1960.

I also got word that the reason that there are a few houses on the right side of Greenridge that aren't Eichlers is because the lot wasn't big enough to plant an Eichler without going over the hill. They built narrow 2 story homes with decks in place of them.

Nick