The Pomeroy Green Eichler townhouses in Santa Clara are a different kind of Eichler project: 78 two-story townhouses grouped into 16 buildings on shared grounds, with a clubhouse and pool, on about 6.5 acres at the northeast corner of Pomeroy Avenue and Benton Street. Construction was finished in 1963. Pomeroy West, a later Eichler Homes project, sits across the street to the west. Pomeroy Green has been a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places since March 24, 2021.
This post covers how the complex was planned, what the townhouses are like and how the listing came about, using the 2020 copy of the National Register nomination in the City of Santa Clara's records, the city's 2020 and 2021 staff reports, the State Historical Resources Commission's records and the National Park Service's weekly list. It doesn't cover the market. Our Santa Clara mid-century modern page covers the city's other modern homes.
Why Pomeroy Green was different
The nomination says Eichler's usual practice was tracts of single-family homes on their own lots. Pomeroy Green groups attached townhouses on common grounds, a pattern the nomination calls cluster development: shared grounds and landscaping and cooperative management, meant to conserve open space and farmland. The nomination lists the district under Criterion A, for its "pioneering use of cluster development," and under Criterion C, for its architecture and landscape architecture.
The nomination ties the project to local concern about disappearing orchards and farmland. It says Santa Clara County planners published a brochure promoting cluster subdivisions over conventional lots, and that a county planning briefing to developers used Pomeroy Green as an example. Discussing the rising price of his detached homes, Eichler is quoted as saying, "The situation obviously calls for a more intensive use of land." By the nomination's measure, Pomeroy Green has twelve townhouse units per acre, compared with six or fewer single-family homes per acre in typical Santa Clara housing tracts. A 1964 book on cluster development and a national magazine feature that year both covered the project.
The site plan and landscape
The land was part of an orchard owned by the Pomeroys, and Benton Street was realigned to the south in a reverse curve to make room for the project. The 16 residential buildings hold between two and eight townhouses each. They run north-south or east-west and are arranged to enclose motor courts, parking lots and shared open spaces, with the clubhouse and pool in a central common area. A single ranch house outside the boundary is surrounded on three sides by Pomeroy Green buildings.
Spacing was planned for privacy. Where buildings sit at right angles and overlap, they are at least 36 feet apart, with an average of 40 feet, and buildings facing each other across a motor court are about 44 feet apart. Parking, driveways and utilities are shared, and the nomination says the savings let the power and telephone lines go underground.
The landscape is credited to Hideo Sasaki and Peter Walker of Sasaki, Walker and Associates. About three hundred trees enclose the driveways, parking lots and open spaces. Magnolias line Pomeroy Avenue and Benton Street, planted on 30-foot centers so their crowns overlap and set five feet behind the sidewalk; camphor trees shade the parking lots; and elms line one walk. The original oval pool is still there, and the nomination counts the landscape itself as a contributing site. Our guide to mid-century modern landscaping covers the ideas behind plans like this.
The townhouses
All the townhouses are the same size, and each one mirrors the unit next to it. The buildings combine concrete block walls, laid in a stack bond, with post-and-beam framing, which lets the front and back of each unit open up with large windows and sliding glass doors. Wood siding and stucco panels fill out the walls, and the flat roofs are a membrane over 2x8 tongue-and-groove boards. At the back, the roof cantilevers four feet past the rear wall.
Each unit has a one-car carport, and the front door is inside it, a sheltered entry the nomination compares favorably with the side door of a typical garage. Door heights were set at seven feet to line up with the underside of the carport roof, and entry doors were painted in bright colors. Each townhouse has two fenced yards, a small one in front and a larger one in back, with six-foot fences: vertical tongue-and-groove boards in front and board-and-batten in back.
Inside, the ground floor is open, with the living and dining area facing the back yard, a multipurpose room facing the front and a half bath in the middle. Upstairs are four bedrooms and two full baths, a laundry area and a boiler room holding the gas-fired heater and pumps for the radiant floor heat. Five skylights light the second floor. Walls are stained mahogany plywood or gypsum board, kitchen cabinets have sliding Masonite doors, and the stovetop was set at 32 inches instead of the standard 36. The townhouses were built without air conditioning, and the nomination credits the tree canopy with keeping the grounds cooler in summer. For more on how these plans connect inside and out, see our page on indoor-outdoor living.
The architect was Claude Oakland, who took the Eichler account with him when he started his own firm in 1960. The nomination's archive sources, from the Oakland firm's collection at UC Berkeley, file Pomeroy Green material under 1960–1962 and joint Pomeroy Green and Pomeroy West material under 1962–1963 and 1963–1964. More on him is on our Claude Oakland page.
Pomeroy West
The nomination describes Pomeroy West as a later Eichler Homes project in the same mid-century modern style, across the street to the west, and says the success of Pomeroy Green helped secure it. The two complexes share many of the same architectural features. Pomeroy West is not part of the historic district, and none of the official records we read gives its number of units, its ownership structure or the year it was finished, so we've left those out rather than guess.
How the district was listed
Santa Clara's Historical and Landmarks Commission took up the nomination on October 1, 2020 and recommended that the City Council support it. The city's council report counts about 10 letters in support before that meeting and five speakers in support at it. The report said the city had not previously concluded that a mid-century modern development warranted listing on its Historic Resources Inventory and that no qualified historian had yet evaluated the property for the city, and it made no staff recommendation. At the city's request, the state hearing was moved from November 6, 2020 to January 29, 2021.
On January 12, 2021, the City Council voted to recommend approval to the state commission, with conditions for the applicant: a petition signed by a simple majority of owners, a historian's review, notice to neighbors within 200 feet and to shareholders, written instructions for submitting complaints, a resolution from the cooperative's board, City Attorney review and a return to the council. On January 29, 2021, the State Historical Resources Commission pulled the nomination from its consent calendar, discussed it and approved it 6-0-0 at the local level under Criteria A and C. The National Park Service listed Pomeroy Green on March 24, 2021, as reference SG100006330. The nomination's period of significance is 1963, and it counts 17 contributing buildings and one contributing site.
What the listing does and doesn't change
The nomination says Pomeroy Green has been an owner-occupied housing cooperative since it opened. Owners are shareholders with the sole right to use their own townhouse, a five-member elected board of shareholders meets monthly to set maintenance and occupancy policies, and a professional manager handles day-to-day work. Ask the board about its own rules before planning any exterior work.
The sources differ on what listing requires. The National Park Service says National Register listing places no restrictions on a non-federal owner unless federal funding, licensing or permits are involved, though state and local laws may apply. Santa Clara's January 2021 council report said that if the state found the property eligible, future changes would have to conform to the Secretary of the Interior's standards, and nearby projects would have to consider effects on Pomeroy Green during environmental review. The state's letter in the city's 2020 report notes that National Register properties have been listed on the California Register automatically since January 1, 1993.
Locally, the 2021 report said Santa Clara's historic preservation ordinance would not apply unless the city separately added Pomeroy Green to its Historic Resources Inventory, which takes its own council approval, and that a Mills Act contract would also require that listing. A search of the city's legislative records on November 6, 2026 turned up no later item adding it. This is general information, not legal advice. Check any project with the cooperative's board and Santa Clara's planning division, and ask an attorney about the cooperative's documents. The state's January 2021 hearing notice and the National Park Service's weekly list show the listing steps.
Frequently asked questions
How many townhouses are at Pomeroy Green?
Santa Clara's 2020 staff report counts 78 townhouses in 17 buildings, including the clubhouse. The state's description gives 16 residential buildings of two to eight townhouses each, plus the clubhouse.
Is Pomeroy West part of the historic district?
No. The nomination mentions Pomeroy West as a later Eichler project across the street that shares many of Pomeroy Green's features, but the district covers Pomeroy Green only.
Who designed Pomeroy Green?
The nomination credits builder Joseph Eichler, architect Claude Oakland and landscape architects Sasaki, Walker and Associates. The state commission's notice lists the same three.
Related reading
San Jose Eichler Tracts: Morepark, Fairglen, Hudson and Fairhaven
Rancho Rinconada, Cupertino: The 1950s Tract and Its Builders
More guides on this topic: Eichler Neighborhoods & Tract Histories
Curious about Pomeroy Green's design or how its cooperative works? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team online.
