Wondering how to tell if a house is an Eichler? Start with one fact that clears up a lot of confusion: "Eichler" names a builder, not a style. Joseph Eichler's company built more than 11,000 houses in California, according to the City of Palo Alto's Eichler design guidelines, and other builders put up low-roofed, glass-walled houses in the same years and sometimes on the same streets. A few of them even hired the same architects.
So a confident answer takes two kinds of evidence: what the house shows you and what the records say. Below is the order we work in, from the paperwork to the curb to the ceiling, plus the remodel traps that fool careful buyers. If you want the bigger picture first, our page on the difference between an Eichler and mid-century modern explains how the two labels relate.
Step 1: Find the tract before you judge the house
Eichler Homes built in tracts, so the fastest test is whether the parcel sits inside a known Eichler subdivision. Public records have done some of this work for you.
Palo Alto. The city's 2018 Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines include a map and a table of more than 30 Eichler tracts with their years and, where known, their architects, from University Gardens (1949–1950, credited to Joseph Eichler with a draftsman named Castor) to Los Arboles Addition No. 2 (1974, Claude Oakland).
San Jose. Draft National Register documentation prepared in 2018 for Eichler's San Jose tracts lists his subdivisions by recorded tract number: Morepark (Tracts 656 and 1136), Fairglen (Tract 1818), the three Fairglen Additions units (Tracts 2238, 2239 and 2240), Hudson (Tract 2837) and Fairhaven (Tract 3009).
How did the experts confirm those Palo Alto boundaries? The consultants who wrote the guidelines compared historic newspaper advertisements and articles with county assessor parcel maps, which showed the original subdivision lines and sometimes the tract name, then confirmed the boundaries with a site survey in February 2017. They also noted that pockets of one or two Eichlers exist outside the mapped tracts. In other words, a lone house can be real. The same guidelines also point out that a non-Eichler home can sit inside an Eichler neighborhood.
For any address, ask your agent or title officer which recorded tract the parcel is in, then compare it with the city's list or ask the planning department. Our Eichler homes page is a starting point for Bay Area Eichler neighborhoods.
Step 2: Read the street face
Palo Alto's guidelines list the character-defining features you can see from the sidewalk. Not every Eichler has all of them, but an original one usually shows several:
One story, low and horizontal, with box-like massing and clean lines.
A flat roof with no parapet, a low-pitched gable or a flat-and-shed combination. Palo Alto's guidelines say slopes are typically shallow, often 3:12, though one flat-roof type has a steeper gable over the entry; the Greenmeadow nomination describes roofs that are flat or about 2:12.
Overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails or beam ends and wide fascia boards.
A garage or carport on the front, folded into the roof form, with a garage door clad in vertical wood that matches the walls.
Very little front glass. Expect clerestory windows above the garage or tucked under a gable, sometimes triangular at the gable ends.
A solid wood entry door that is recessed or on the side, often with a sidelite, an entry court or an atrium.
Wood siding, usually vertical: tongue-and-groove redwood boards or scored redwood plywood, sometimes with a concrete block wall. Green Gables, built in 1950, used horizontal redwood boards, so board direction alone doesn't rule a house out.
Shingles, stucco, brick, decorated front doors or new street-facing windows don't prove a house isn't an Eichler. The Greenmeadow National Register survey, which covered a tract Eichler Homes built in 1954 and 1955, counted all of those as alterations. They tell you how much has changed, not who built it.
Step 3: Look up, down and through
Inside, the structure gives the strongest clues, because it is the hardest part of a house to change.
The ceiling is the roof. The draft National Register nomination for San Jose's Fairglen Additions describes the stained underside of two-inch by eight-inch tongue-and-groove redwood roof decking as the ceiling, and the Greenmeadow nomination says Eichler roofs have no attics.
Posts and beams are exposed, and projecting beams often carry deep overhangs past the walls. Our page on post and beam construction explains the system.
The back wall is glass. Palo Alto's guidelines describe full-height rear glazing with fully glazed aluminum sliding doors set into the window walls.
The walls may be mahogany. Palo Alto's guidelines say Eichler walls often feature mahogany paneling, and the Fairglen nomination describes deep-toned Philippine mahogany veneer.
The floor is a concrete slab with radiant heat. Palo Alto's guidelines note copper heating pipes in some Eichlers and steel pipes in others.
The plan opens to the rear yard. Palo Alto's guidelines describe an open living and dining room and a kitchen and multi-purpose room that connect to the yard. In Greenmeadow's T-shaped plans, the kitchen sits in a central position and the bedroom wing is a separate volume.
The Green Gables nomination describes post-and-beam framing on a slab-on-grade foundation as standard in Eichler-built homes from 1950 on. Caltrans' statewide tract housing study adds that Eichler's first houses, built under the Sunnyvale Building Company name before he hired Anshen & Allen, were stud-framed, so the oldest examples are the exception. Otherwise, a raised floor over a crawlspace is a reason to dig deeper.
Step 4: Match the model and the architect
Eichler's houses came from a small team, and each firm left fingerprints.
Anshen & Allen designed the AA-1 prototype, a T-shaped plan Eichler built in 1950, and UC Berkeley's Environmental Design Archives dates the firm's work with Eichler from 1950 to 1960. See our Anshen & Allen page.
Jones & Emmons joined to supplement that work. At Greenmeadow the firm's plans were numbered JE-14 through JE-19, and the nomination credits A. Quincy Jones with pronounced roof profiles and carports sheltered under an extension of the living room roof. See Jones & Emmons.
Claude Oakland joined Anshen & Allen in 1950 and formed his own firm in 1960. Palo Alto's guidelines credit him with hipped roofs, gabled roofs with flat peaks and gables parallel to the street, as well as two-story designs. See Claude Oakland.
Original plans and sales brochures carry model numbers, such as the E-111 that the San Jose documentation dates to 1959, or the L-154 that Oakland designed in Los Altos in 1968. If you can find the original plan, compare it room by room with the house. Our Eichler floor plans page, with collections for Anshen & Allen, Jones & Emmons and Claude Oakland, is a good place to start.
Step 5: Rule out the look-alikes
The modern tract house wasn't Eichler's alone, which is why this step matters.
Same architects, different builder. Palo Alto's guidelines say Anshen & Allen also designed modernist tract homes for John Calder Mackay. The Greenmeadow nomination adds that Mackay's houses were contemporary in plan but clad outside in more familiar vernacular styles.
Other modern builders. Caltrans' statewide study of postwar tract housing names the Streng Brothers in Sacramento and George and Robert Alexander in Southern California alongside Eichler as builders of refined Contemporary-style houses.
One modern model in a traditional tract. The same study notes that some builders mixed one or two Contemporary models into otherwise traditional tracts, often framed with studs rather than posts and beams. On a house that hasn't been heavily remodeled, a flat, covered ceiling that hides closely spaced rafters points to stud framing.
An atrium alone proves nothing. The study also notes that a few builders adopted atrium plans in the later 1950s.
"Eichler-style" in a listing describes a look. It doesn't tell you who built the house.
Step 6: Separate "remodeled" from "not an Eichler"
A true Eichler can look very different today. The Greenmeadow nomination found that common changes were replacement garage doors and front doors, and that original tar-and-gravel roofs had given way to modified bitumen, single-ply sheeting and polyurethane foam. The Fairglen Additions nomination in San Jose lists infilled carports and garages, added 4:12 sloped roofs and second stories. Palo Alto's guidelines also discuss replacement heating where an original radiant system can't be repaired.
Historic surveys handle this with "contributing" and "non-contributing" labels. At Greenmeadow, 220 buildings were rated contributing. In an Eichler tract, a non-contributing house can still be an Eichler: the Fairglen Additions nomination rates a house non-contributing when additions have cost it the one-story massing and original roof forms. For a buyer, originality and provenance are separate questions, and both deserve answers. Our Eichler renovation guide covers what to look for in past work.
Frequently asked questions
Is every mid-century house with an atrium an Eichler?
No. Caltrans' tract housing study dates Anshen & Allen's atrium plan for Eichler to 1957, and the same study notes that a few builders adopted atrium plans in the later 1950s. Check the tract and the structure before you rely on the atrium.
Are there two-story Eichlers?
Yes, a few. Palo Alto's guidelines say Claude Oakland helped Eichler develop two-story designs, which appear in some of the city's tracts, including the Los Arboles Addition of 1972–1974. A second story on an older tract house is more likely an addition, so check the permit history.
When were Eichlers built?
Eichler started his company in 1947 under the name Sunnyvale Building Company. Eichler Homes filed for bankruptcy in 1967, and Eichler kept building as J. L. Eichler Associates until his death in 1974. Palo Alto's guidelines say the last Eichler house was completed on Guinda Street in 1975.
Did Eichler build outside the South Bay?
Yes. The Caltrans study counts more than 1,700 houses in Marin County tracts and more than 700 in East Bay communities, plus a small tract in Sacramento and tracts in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.
Related reading
Trying to confirm a specific address before you write an offer? Call or text the Boyenga Team, Silicon Valley's Property Nerds® at Compass, at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team and we'll walk through the records with you.
