/ Introduction
This site is dedicated to our Eichler home, which we purchased in the summer of 2001. It was our first experience with the real estate market in the San Francisco Bay Area, our first experience with purchasing an "older" home, and our first exposure to the legacy of Joseph Eichler. In the process of purchasing this house and working on it for the past year or so, we have come to appreciate Mr. Eichler's vision and the house he built - so it seems - for us. Back in 2001 Eichler homes appeared be to considered of lower value than homes of more traditional design, however, it seems that now in 2007 the situation has changed, for reasons that I can only speculate about, It appears though that there has been a lot of publicity over the past years, which has had a positive impact on the value perception. This site was originally intended to describe the process we went through in 2001 and 2002 to remodel our home. Now, after a number of years of living in the house and neighborhood, we continue to enjoy our Eichler and have continued to make improvements to maintain appearance and value of our home. In recent years, a lot of information on Eichler homes has become available in print and on the internet. The intent of this site is not repeat what has already been covered, but rather refer to a number of links to sites that provide in depth coverage of Mr. Eichler and his work and impact, as well as the current Eichler real estate market in Northern and Southern California. Books about Eichler are available, for example through Amazon (click on the book covers below to link to Amazon).
/ News	Eichler Homes Realty: Eichler Real Estate The world of Eichler Design: Owner Site Eichler Network: SF Bay Area Resources Eichler Homes of Southern California Eichler City: Inventory of SF Bay Area homes Loni Nagwani: SF Bay Area Eichler Real Estate Nil Erdal: SF Bay Area Eichler real estate and market data
Spring 2008: exterior repainted Summer 2007: master bathroom remodel Summer 2007: new roof
/ Our home
Our home is located in Sunnyvale, in the "Fairbrae" development, which is located roughly in the quadrant formed by Fremont, Hollenbeck, Remington and Sunnyvale-Saratoga streets. While the neighborhood is dominated by Eichler homes, it is overall probably not as well  preserved as some of neighborhoods in Palo Alto or Cupertino; yet in the past number of years we have observed a lot of improvement work going on. The floor plan to the right - a Jones & Emmons design - is the closest match we could find to our actual home. We have an atrium model with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 1,984 sqft living space (not counting the atrium). The house sits on app. 8,000 sqft size lot on a dead-end street. It has been completed in 1960, and probably had four or five owners before us. From what we and our neighbors can tell, the last major remodel in our home must have taken place in the early to mid 80s. In hindsight it turns out that our plan appears to be one of the largest ones in this area. Most of the houses we have looked at in the Sunnyvale/Cupertino area are range between 1,500 and 1,800 sqft, if they have not been modified, i.e. by covering the atrium. The main features of our house are the atrium, which is - compared to other houses in our area - one the largest ones we have seen, and the spacious living/dining room with vaulted ceiling and "walls of glass" to both the atrium and backyard. The links to the right on this page provide more information about our house: how it looked when we bought it in 2001; what we did to remodel the house; and what it looks like now. We hope this information is useful to you, and please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments. We will continue to update this page on a somewhat regular basis with new pictures and information, as we continue to work on the house. Back to Top
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2003, 2008, Raoul & Bärbel Schuhmacher