Eichler or Pretender?

This home reminds me of a story my cousin told me about a friend of his parents. He owned an Eichler in Concord and loved living there. When he was transferred in the late 60s to the East (for a job in N.Y. city) he could not find a home he liked as much as his Eichler. Well, he decided to have an Eichler look-alike built from the ground up.
I have e-mailed my cousin to find out his friend's name and the city where the house was located. It would be an amazing coincidence if this was his home. But no matter who built it, it looks beautiful and is a classic mid- century modern design at least from the outside. Congratulations on this find!

Hi Leslie,

Thanks. If I have learned anything it is that this IS a small world. It would be funny and surprising but I have heard stranger things.

I would love to find something a little bit closer to my partner's work but a 45 minute commute isn't so bad. I'll keep looking though in the meantime and report back on what I see on the inside of this house. The agent said sliders all across the back, open floor plan and that it needs work because it is pretty much in the condition as built... all music to my ears :)

Let me know what you find out as well!

Barry

hey barryb of http://www.gomod.com - one of THE coolest Modern websites on the web... welcome aboard.

check out some of the pictures that have been posted on the Lotta Living Gallery for the Philly/Southern N.J. area

http://www.lottaliving.com/gallery/album05

Hi megamail,

Thanks for the props.. I guess there goes my hopes of posting in relative anonymity...LOL

Actually it is funny that you mention that. I saw that gallery a couple weeks ago and then driving around our area we happened upon that neighborhood just this past weekend. It's funny how you can sense where a modern neighborhood might be just by the lay of the land and other visual markers... at least on the East Coast where modern homes seems to be somewhat scarce.

Unfortunately, we are looking at moving away from this area and a bit closer to Central/Northern NJ where my partner works... although I am sure it is commonplace in California a 1 1/2 hour commute wears on you after a while. Luckily we have the luxury of being able to wait until we find something that we really like. I hate to leave the Philly area but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Well we drove up to see the house in the picture and around this area today and there are about 12 houses in this same design in the same neighborhood (the one for sale that we looked at was trashed by years of rental gone bad, but had good bones) ... and this IS the neighborhood with the 3 East Coast Eichlers, they were just 2-3 blocks away (it was great to actually see an Eichler in person .. I have a few outdoor digital images but haven't looked to see how good they look yet) ... so these obviously must have been done a bit later by a different developer using many of the design elements you might see in an Eichler... although the Eichlers there are quite different in design.

Anyway, I have never seen so much modernism as I did today. Lots and lots of great houses throughout this whole area. I think we actually found our dream house a bit North of this town and now have to think about it. It's quite a bit more than we were planning to pay but has everything we ever wanted in a great house. One of those houses that make you feel all warm and fuzyy inside... a very dangerous thing to feel when looking at housing I must say!

Hello,

I recently purchased a home in Central New Jersey that was built in 1961. When I first described the home to a friend of mine from the Bay area, the first thing he said was, “it sounds like an Eichler”. As it turns out, it is not. I found the original plans in a closet, and it was actually designed by an architect on Madison Ave. in New York City named Robert Martin Engelbrecht. My question is, does anyone have any information on this architect, and is there any connection to Eichler? The only other information that I have is that the plans for the home were displayed at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.

Here is a picture of the back of the house.

Thanks for your time,

keir

Keir:

I own a home by Robert Martin Englebrecht. We do not have much info on him. We don't even have the plan on the house. We have the magazine the house was in in the 70's. we are in central NJ. The house is built above a stream., would love to find out more aobut engelbrecht.

Jen