An Eichler atrium model is a house built around an open-air room at its center. You step through the front door into a garden court, and the living areas and bedrooms look onto it through walls of glass. It is the plan many people picture when they hear "Eichler," but it was only one of several plan types Eichler Homes built, and the words atrium, courtyard and gallery often get mixed up.
This guide sorts them out using the original records: the National Register nominations for Eichler tracts in Palo Alto and San Jose (the San Jose documents are drafts), the City of Palo Alto's Eichler design guidelines and Caltrans' statewide study of postwar tract housing. Knowing the plan type before a tour tells you how a house handles privacy and light, and how you get from the curb to the living room.
Atrium, courtyard and gallery: the three plan types
Courtyard plan. An L-shaped or U-shaped house wraps an outdoor court at the front. The Fairglen Additions nomination in San Jose describes its L-shaped models as having a front courtyard in the corner between the garage and the living and dining wing.
Atrium plan. The house is roughly square, and the outdoor room sits inside it. In Fairglen's square models, the atrium lies between the garage and the bedroom wing, and the front entry leads into the atrium rather than straight into the house.
Gallery model. Draft National Register documentation for Eichler's San Jose tracts uses this name for Claude Oakland's 1960s Eichler designs with indoor atriums under tall or pitched roofs. The center of the house is roofed over rather than open to the sky.
Palo Alto's guidelines sum up the pattern in one line: Eichler floor plans are often relatively square and organized around a center atrium, or U-shaped around a rear patio or a front carport or courtyard entry. Our Eichler floor plans page has plan drawings to compare.
Where the Eichler atrium came from
The atrium grew out of earlier plans. Anshen & Allen's AA-1 prototype, developed in 1950 for the second phase of the Sunnyvale Manor subdivision, was T-shaped, and the Fairglen nomination traces the later L-shaped courtyard plans back to it.
Jones & Emmons took the next step at Greenmeadow in Palo Alto, built in 1954–55. In the firm's T-shaped plans, a front-yard court was enclosed by a street-side concrete block wall and bounded on its other two sides by the bedroom wing and the garage. The Greenmeadow nomination says this feature "alludes to the atrium, a later innovation." The same plans set the garage apart to form a protected court off the kitchen, which Eichler's sales literature called an "outdoor dining nook."
The sources give slightly different dates for the atrium itself. Caltrans' study says Anshen & Allen's atrium plan was first introduced in 1957 and that the majority of Eichler houses built after 1957 included atriums. The Fairglen nomination traces Anshen & Allen drawings with the feature to as early as 1956 and says it was in Eichler designs by 1958. Caltrans also gives the reason for it: private outdoor space on small lots and more daylight inside the house. Our pages on Anshen & Allen and Jones & Emmons cover both firms.
Courtyard plans: the L and the U
Courtyard plans keep the open space at the front, outside the main body of the house. Fairglen's L-shaped models show how the idea varied:
SJ-1003 puts a private front courtyard in the corner between the main bar of the house and a projecting garage, with two bedrooms facing the court.
SJ-1004 places the court between the living and dining bar and the bedroom and garage wing, with a recessed sliding glass entry door in the corner of the L.
SJ-24 uses the same corner court, and some of these houses were built with organic-shaped concrete courtyard patios.
In SJ-1004 and SJ-24, the living and dining areas open both to the front court and to the patio across the back, so the main room has glass at each end. Fairglen's original houses also came with vertical grooved privacy fences built into the front elevations. Palo Alto's guidelines say a fence can enclose a front courtyard as long as it sits flush with the front façade, which keeps the original massing readable from the street.
Atrium plans: a garden inside the walls
In an atrium model, the house itself surrounds the outdoor room. Fairglen's square models follow a pattern: the entry to the atrium sits between the garage and the bedroom wing, the bedroom wing runs along one side, and the living and dining areas open onto a patio across the back. Examples include:
SJ-E31 and SJ-1103, which the nomination compares with Eichler's E-111 model, built in Palo Alto, Terra Linda and the San Mateo Highlands. Both have an eight-foot level roof and a flush entry door with a clerestory and sidelight.
SJ-1114, SJ-1534 and SJ-1504, where the living and dining areas wrap one side of the atrium and a low 2:12 gable covers a one-car garage and a combined porch and carport. SJ-1534 adds an open skylight in the roof over the entry.
SJ-1184, a T-shaped plan with a central atrium, where the living and dining areas are reached through the atrium.
Jones & Emmons kept refining the type. According to the Caltrans study, Jones added a central carport topped by a high-pitched gable, a design Eichler introduced in his Lucas Valley tract in Marin County, begun in 1963. Our Jones & Emmons floor plans and Anshen & Allen floor plans pages collect plan drawings, and our atrium living page has more on these spaces.
Gallery models and covered atriums
Claude Oakland worked in Anshen & Allen's office through the 1950s and opened his own firm in 1960. The Caltrans study says he kept developing new variations on the atrium plans that had come out of that office and was the primary designer of Eichler houses through the 1960s and early 1970s. The San Jose documentation credits him with designing and refining the gallery models, with indoor atriums under tall or pitched roofs, and notes that other plans from the period were organized around partially enclosed courts that could adapt to different lot sizes.
One Fairglen model shows a roof rising over the center. Oakland's SJ-4 "D" places an A-frame roof with clerestory windows over the central atrium, set into an otherwise eight-foot level roof. See our Claude Oakland page and his Claude Oakland floor plans.
Other builders covered the center from the start. Caltrans notes that the Streng Brothers in Sacramento built an atrium design beginning in the early 1970s that was open to the interior and covered by a roof with a large plastic dome skylight, not an outdoor space like the Eichler atrium.
A gallery model was designed with a roof over its center. An open atrium that was roofed over later is a different thing. Palo Alto's guidelines treat enclosing an atrium, courtyard or carport as one way to gain living space, say the new roof can rise slightly above the original, and ask that it match or be compatible with the surrounding roof. In National Register districts, the guidelines prioritize keeping existing courtyards and atria over enclosing them. The Greenmeadow survey counted atrium covers that significantly alter the roofline against a house's historic rating. If you're considering a cover, check with the city's planning department first.
Reading the plan type from the curb
You can often guess the plan before you open the door:
Where is the entry? In Fairglen's atrium models, the entry sits between the garage and the bedroom wing. In two of its L-shaped courtyard models, SJ-1004 and SJ-24, the recessed entry sits in the corner of the L.
Is there obscured glass facing the street? The Fairglen nomination lists obscured glass panels at atriums among the features that face the street, and Palo Alto's guidelines note textured glass at some atria.
Does a tall roof rise over the center? Jones's later atrium design put a high-pitched gable over a central carport, and Oakland's gallery models placed indoor atriums under tall or pitched roofs.
Is there a fence built into the front? A wood fence flush with the front elevation may be closing off a front court.
On the tour, ask whether the center is open to the sky or roofed, whether any roof was original or added, and what the permit history shows. For how these outdoor rooms connect to the rest of the house, see our indoor-outdoor living page.
Frequently asked questions
What is an Eichler atrium model?
It is an Eichler plan built around an open-air court inside the walls of the house, usually reached through the front entry. Palo Alto's guidelines describe these as relatively square plans organized around a center atrium. In San Jose's Fairglen Additions, the atrium sits between the garage and the bedroom wing.
When did Eichler start building atrium models?
In the late 1950s. Caltrans' tract housing study dates Anshen & Allen's atrium plan to 1957, while the Fairglen nomination traces atrium drawings to as early as 1956 and says the feature was in Eichler designs by 1958.
Do all Eichlers have atriums?
No. Greenmeadow's 1954–55 Jones & Emmons plans used walled front courts that, in the nomination's words, allude to the atrium, "a later innovation." Fairglen also includes L-shaped courtyard models and SJ-1163, a square plan without a central atrium.
Is a covered atrium the same as a gallery model?
Not necessarily. Gallery models were designed with indoor atriums under tall or pitched roofs, while a cover added later to an open atrium is an alteration. The permit history and original plans can tell you which you're looking at, and the city can tell you what any future change would require.
Related reading
Eichler Atrium Cover Options: Drainage, Roofing Over or Enclosing
Streng Brothers Homes: Sacramento's Mid-Century Modern Tracts
Want help reading a plan before you tour, or matching a house to its original model? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team and we'll pull what we can find on the address.
