CA-Modern Magazine Winter 2019

W I N T E R 2 019

CA MODERN

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Winter 2019

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Contents

7

7 CA-Modernist Spotlight Eye for beauty: Eichler’s appreciation included women of grace and strength

8 Feature Storyboard

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14 24

Tranquil cul-de-sac with a rural feeling —‘sweet 16’ Eichlers of Monte Sereno

14 Art About the House Motorola’s futuristic dreamscapes and the greatest modern homes never built

20 Modern Renewal California’s Title 24 building code keeps gnawing away at Eichler home integrity

24 California Dreamin’ Check upsetting neighborhood changes before the dreaded wakeup call arrives

28 On the Homefront

20

Labor of love in full bloom: San Mateo’s Eichler X-100 in the restoration spotlight

34

32 Blast from the Past Unsung masters of the mid-century: California architects you ought to know

32

34 Dear Cherry Advice, etiquette and tips for healthy homemaking and mid-mod manners

Contributors 28

Publisher & Managing Editor | Marty Arbunich | marty@eichlernetwork.com Marketing Coordinator | Chris Marcoccio | chris@eichlernetwork.com Publisher’s Consultant | Dave Kalman of Terrella Media Features Editor | Dave Weinstein

On the Cover We initially spotted this issue’s cover photo a couple years back on Flickr. For its creator, photo hobbyist Dash Plunkett, “the image was just part of a take-a-photoevery-day-for-a-year challenge, and I never thought much more of it.” But we did— having a special place in our heart for pets, especially cute ones lounging in Eichler settings. “This photo was shot on New Year’s Eve 2015,” recalls Dash, a collector and vendor of mid-century furniture who’s lived in his family’s atrium-model Eichler in Castro Valley’s Greenridge for the past two decades. Dash had been setting up to photograph the chair and couch in the scene “when the three dogs waltzed in and took over.” The two Beagles, Rocky and Penny, live with Dash; the Silken Windhound, Thorne, is a neighbor. How tough was it to keep the three sitting still?

“Well, Rocky and Penny don’t like to pose unless you bribe them with treats, and even then it’s difficult to get them to sit still long enough to get a clear shot,” Dash admits. “The Windhound, on the other hand, is like a statue, almost like he knows he’s being photographed.” While Dash considers himself lucky to have pulled off the taming of his menagerie, we’re so happy he did. Together, they make for a fun cover!

Home-Improvement Editor | Tanja Kern Staff Writers | Dan Smith | Jack Levitan | Jeff Kaliss Photography | Sabrina Huang Print Designer | Diana Rich Social Media Editor | Robin Bertelsen of Daxia Digital Web Maintenance | Priscila Hoffman CA-Modern magazine is published quarterly in regional editions during January, April, July, and October by the Eichler Network, P.O. Box 22635, San Francisco, CA 94122. Mailed to thousands of select California mid-century modern households (and aficionados), including all Northern California Eichler and Streng modern homes. Subscriptions and back issues available at the CA-Modern magazine section of Eichler Network Online: eichlernetwork.com. Publisher: 415-668-0954. Marketing: 415-307-3801.

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■BLOG SPOTLIGHT

The CA Modernist Joe loved women of grace, strength He even mentored one of Marin’s top ladies of business It’s clear to anyone who appreciates Eichler homes that their creator, Joe Eichler, had an eye for beauty.

Besides their efficient use of space, their clever touches like exterior doorways from bathrooms and atriums, the homes have an elegance that is rare.

Joe appreciated grace in all things, from athletics to dance. He enjoyed a good play in a baseball game, and he loved to watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance.

University with a degree in business and was working for “a guy in investments, a guy with a small office.”

His boss told Joe something that he never forgot, Ned recalled.

“Never go into an office with a woman and close the door, or you will be accused of something.”

Throughout his years running Eichler Homes and its successor firms, Joe worked with many women, including the firm’s head accountant and treasurer, Ruby Rose Germaine; her assistant, Lisa Boyd, who was married to Joe’s inhouse architect, Joe Boyd; and Josie Graham, who stepped in with a smile and a solution when homebuyers came in with complaints.

how art could enhance domestic life.

Artists Matt Kahn, Anne Knorr, Bryan Wilson, Ernie Kim, Virginia Davidson, and others provided the art.

Joe adored his wife, Lillian, in part because of her beauty, Ned said.

She led a good life, enjoying social activities and community affairs, and stopping by the office rarely.

woman with Eichler Homes, though, was Catherine Munson, a former researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission and young mother who became Eichler’s top salesperson back in the day when few women did much in home sales beyond greeting customers at model homes.

She was Eichler’s first woman

It’s no surprise then to be reminded that Joe appreciated beautiful women.

His son Ned recalled one telling incident in a 2012 interview. He’d be with his father in a restaurant, or on the street, and a beautiful woman would pass by. Ned would feel a nudge from his dad.

“Did you see that dish?” Joe would ask.

“No.” “Jesus, what kind of son am I raising?”

So was Joe just another cigarchomping, Me-Too-provoking sort of a guy? Not if you listen to Ned, who passed away in 2014 but left behind interviews and memoirs.

Ned said his father had great respect for women, employing many in his firms and at upper levels—at a time when relatively few women played important roles in merchant homebuilding.

“He treated women as if they were equals to men, intellectually,” Ned recalled. “He treated them as people.”

Joe also abided by a piece of advice he learned very early in his pre-homebuilding career, back in New York City, where he grew up.

Joe was in his early to mid-20s, and either recently married, or soon to be. He had graduated from New York

EQUALS TO MEN. Above right: At the ‘Art About the House’ event, Joe Eichler poses with (L-R) artist Anne Knorr, Barbara Dee, and landscape architect Kathryn Stedman. Above left: Eichler and Catherine Munson, who began as a model home hostess, rose in Eichler’s ranks, then became a leading business force in Marin.

Eichler Homes was a bit of a family-run operation, and for a time Joe’s sister-in-law, Mollie Moncharsh, processed loan applications for buyers.

She dressed well and expensively. In a memoir, Ned wrote about an encounter between Joe and the owner of the high-end department store Joseph Magnin.

Very few women were working as architects during the period, and even fewer in lead roles. But Joe did work with at least one woman in a lead design role, the landscape architect Kathryn ‘Kay’ Imlay Stedman. Stedman, wife of the Palo Alto architect Morgan Stedman, began working for Joe very early—designing the landscaping for the Anshen and Allen home Joe built for his own family in the early 1950s.

“At a large party he sardonically said to Cyril Magnin, ‘I could ruin your store by stopping my wife from shopping there.’”

She later designed landscaping for some of his subdivisions, including Channing Park in Palo Alto.

“The principal said, ‘No, you’re living on the wrong side of the line, and there’s nothing I can do.’ I could have crawled under a table and disappeared,” Ned said, recounting his embarrassment.

She was also brought in that same year, 1954, to landscape a very special Eichler home, the ‘Art About the House’ home in Palo Alto.

This was a project, publicized with an article in Life magazine, to show

Lillian was as strong-willed a person as her husband. Ned recalled what happened when she tried to enroll her two young sons in Hillsborough’s public schools, even though the Eichler home was half a block away, in the less pretentious town of San Mateo.

“I never saw my mother embarrassed in my life. We got in.”

By far the most important

salesperson, and continued selling Eichlers for decades after Joe died as one of Marin County’s leading real estate brokers and businesswomen.

Munson helped develop homes, offices, the McInnis Park Golf Center in San Rafael, and more. She was also one of the leaders in civic affairs in Marin and beyond.

Munson considered Joe one of her mentors.

“I learned of his gruffness and his clear communication, which I loved,” she wrote. “He didn’t intimidate me. I don’t think he intended to intimidate anybody, but he had a deep bass, gruff voice, and he was a short man, but very well dressed and he was just to the point. That’s all there was to it.”

–Dave Weinstein Photography: courtesy Palo Alto Historical Association, Catherine Munson family

• For the latest ‘CA Modernist’ blog stories, visit EichlerNetwork.com

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■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D

Neighbors build friendships and retain a distinctive rural feeling along Monte Sereno’s tranquil Eichler cul-de-sac Story: Dave Weinstein Photography: Sabrina Huang

Jennifer Begg knew exactly where she wanted her family to live —though her husband doubted such a place existed.

“She had said, ‘I want to live at the end of a cul-de-sac, where you know all your neighbors, and where our kids can run around on the street,’” Tim Begg says, recalling the days when he and Jennifer visited open house after open house.

“I said, ‘Jennifer, that doesn’t exist anymore. For one thing, people would call child services if the kids were seen running around the street.’”

Ah, but Via Sereno does exist, and it is almost as serene as its name suggests. Though it is just off sometimesbusy Winchester Boulevard in the South Bay hamlet of Monte Sereno, the 16-home Eichler cul-de-sac retains a rural feeling.

This is especially so at night, when the glow from within glass-walled houses, restrained landscaping lighting, and the stars provide the only light.

And sound? Rather than freeway noise, folks hear the lonesome whistle from the miniature steam-driven Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad down the hill in Vasona Lake County Park.

And, yes, the Beggs did move into a home at the end of a cul-de-sac, where they are friends with neighbors and where daughter, Emily, and son, Nicolas, play freely out of doors.

Sereno Foothills, as this Eichler tract was originally known, remains an almost intact neighborhood, one of Joe Eichler’s smallest and one of his later ones.

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ON THE STREET. Top: Hidden behind mature trees, the Monte Sereno Eichlers on Via Sereno enjoy a setting of tranquility. Right: Inside the home of Jennifer and Tim Begg, seen here with children Emily and Nicolas. Above: At night, the Beggs’ pool out back glows.

The homes, designed by Claude Oakland and built in 1969 and 1970, are generally four bedrooms and two baths, and on large lots—though longtime resident Bryan Mekechuk points out, “These are the smallest lots in Monte Sereno,” a city with large homes on hilly sites.

Some of the Eichlers have atriums, but others are loggia models, with large entryways opening onto living rooms.

The most recent sale topped $2 million.

The street of Via Sereno is a place where people genuinely like each other so much, they say, that even when one property is allowed to deteriorate, and another becomes a construction zone for years, no one raises a stink.

“They are really nice people,” longtime resident Ned Gault says of the homeowners whose fence, which prominently borders the neighborhood, is falling down.

Patrick Sullivan remembers when he and wife Shelley arrived from a New York suburb. “The truck moved us in, and right away neighbors were coming

close,” Laura Roenicke says of life on Via Sereno. Her parents owned a home there when she was in college, and she and her husband, Eric, bought the home in 2013.

“It’s a little cul-de-sac of 16, so it’s hard not to know everybody’s business.”

Friendships on the cul-de-sac help explain why parents feel free to let their children play on the street. “It’s nice for us to know that the kids know everyone, and are safe,” says Jennifer.

The two children she and Tim brought to Via Sereno—Emily, a kindergartner, and Nicolas, in second grade— are the youngest on the street—and perhaps the noisiest.

And it’s a great place for kids.

Directly behind Via Sereno sits Daves Avenue Elementary School, whose expansive playing fields border several Eichler backyards.

The Sullivans have installed a ladder atop their fence so their daughter, Keira, and son, Liam, and friends can climb over and play in the school field. They also have a basketball hoop at the top of the cul-de-sac.

The Sullivan children often walk by themselves to Vasona Park. It’s a sprawling place with picnic grounds, playing fields, a lake, and a historic carousel that kids and parents love.

Not to mention the miniature trains.

Jennifer Begg remembers when Emily was small and would hear the train steaming in the morning and imagine the carousel horses bobbing up and down. “[Emily] would say, ‘The train! The train! The horses are open! The horses are open!’” Jennifer says. Many days her

CLOSE FEELING. Top: Relaxing in the atrium with the Sullivan family—parents Patrick and Shelley with children Liam and Keira. “We are real Eichler enthusiasts,” Shelley says. “We find ourselves talking about our houses a lot [with neighbors]...You’re part of a club.” Middle, left: The neighborhood loves their block parties—including this one at the home of David Frankel and Karl Brown. That’s Liam Sullivan jumping into the pool.

by bringing wine, bread, salt,” he says. “‘Welcome to the neighborhood!’”

“The neighbors have taken to block parties,” Jennifer says. “Everyone comes and brings food. We sit outside and have beer.”

“Being on a cul-de-sac it’s easy to have barbecues on the street,” says David Frankel, who arrived in 2014 after living in nearby Los Gatos for 15 years.

“It occurred to me that when I left that street, I had only been in one [other] house that entire time,” he says, “and that was when it was being sold and I went in as a looky-loo. I didn’t care much about my neighbors. I was doing my own thing.”

Today, he says, he knows everyone on the street—and has opened his own home for neighborhood parties. “It’s always been

“Some of [the neighbors] tell us they love hearing the sound of kids playing on the street,” says Tim, who also goes by the name ‘Ozzie.’ “We wonder if it doesn’t bother some of them, but they say it anyway.”

Via Sereno has never been filled with young families with children of similar ages, people say. “We had five houses with kids for a while,” says L.D. Hirschklau, who’s lived on the street with her husband since 1977. “But that didn’t last very long.”

But there have always been several homes with kids of varying ages. There are more families with children now than in the recent past.

parents would take the kids there—but not always. “Okay,” Tim would tell his daughter, “we’re not going to go every day, sweetheart.”

The park, which is in the neighboring town of Los Gatos, has walking and bike trails that lead to several nearby towns, including Campbell, and to downtown Los Gatos. “Our kids walk to town by themselves,” Shelley Sullivan says.

Then there are the pleasures afforded to young people by the homes themselves. At least seven of the homes have pools that were built along with the houses. Ironically, the presence of a pool was one thing that Tim hesitated about Continued pg 11 CAMODERN 9

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■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D SWEET SIXTEEN (cont. from pg 9)

when he and Jennifer considered buying their Eichler.

“One thing was, I didn’t think I wanted to maintain the pool,” Tim says.

But then their young son, Nicolas, weighed in, Jennifer recalls. “He said, ‘I want that house! I love that one!’”

Today they can’t imagine life without

the pool. Jennifer and the kids can get hot walking home from school, so they often pop off their street clothes in the atrium and get wet.

After work Tim routinely does the same. “You can just jump in for ten minutes and swim around. It’s a nice, relaxing way to end the day,” he says.

The hassle of pool maintenance?

“We pay somebody to do it,” Tim says.

“If I wasn’t so lazy, I could do it myself.”

Isabella Roenicke, 14, often turns her home’s atrium into an entertainment venue when her friends visit.

“They think it’s pretty cool,” Isabella says. “They like the courtyard area and the room back there. We watch movies that we project on the wall in the atrium.” Most recently 14 of the girls enjoyed ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ though not quietly.

“We kind of talk all the time,” she says.

Isabella and her friends often head downtown too—and that means down-

weekends, the only time this section of Winchester Boulevard grows congested—as beachgoers head up and over the hill to Santa Cruz—walking downtown is a better idea than driving.

“I’ve had the experience where I’ve walked to downtown and have beaten the cars,” David Frankel says.

Tim Begg says his family appreciates the area’s walkability. “We wanted to live someplace where we would not be in the car all the time.”

Downtown Los Gatos is worth visiting, with its well-preserved old buildings, a large green used for evening concerts, local shops, some major chains, and restaurant after restaurant, some of them famous. One coffee shop has live music nightly, and there’s even a nightclub.

Cross Los Gatos Creek and the creek trail and you come to the other mid-century modern landmark in the vicinity, the stylish Los Gatos Civic Center from 1966, where one building has become the lively New

NATURE CALLS. Walking distance from the Monte Sereno Eichlers is Vasona Lake County Park (pictured above), with its picnic grounds, playing fields, a lake, a historic carousel, and walking and biking trails. One of its highlights is the miniature Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad (top left). Left: The park is part the neighboring city of Los Gatos, whose downtown (pictured here) “we get as part of the bargain,” says David Frankel. town Los Gatos. That’s because the city of Monte Sereno, population 4,000, median household income $200,000-plus, has no retail whatsoever, just homes and a few institutional buildings and schools.

The Eichler subdivision is bordered on one side by Los Gatos, and it’s a short walk to downtown. By moving to the Monte Sereno Eichlers, David Frankel says, “We get Los Gatos as part of the bargain.”

From Via Sereno, downtown is less than a mile, a 15-minute walk. On

Museum Los Gatos.

Adults at Via Sereno, many of whom work in the tech industry, also appreciate how easy it is to get to other places, including San Jose International Airport and their workplaces.

Shelley Sullivan, who works for PayPal, gets to her job in about half an hour.

Her husband, Patrick, who works for Apple, gets there in 15 minutes. “I can do all back roads,” he says. “I don’t have to get on the highway.” Their commutes back East were much longer.

C A M O D E R N 11

■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D All the younger people on the street work in tech, folks say. But then, so do all the young people in the area, they add.

Neighbors work for Google and Facebook, among other firms. Tim Begg works for Apple. David Frankel works from home as CEO for a firm that provides audio conferencing services.

Tales of obsessive techies working 24/7 and never turning off their devices are overblown, Tim and Jennifer say, though, Tim adds, “There are times I’m working at home because I have to get something out of my brain, some ideas I need to work out. But it’s not draconian.”

been here since 1977.

He’s a photographer, a frame maker, a glassblower, an Autoharp player who often entertains at Filoli, the famous

there are a handful.

Why the tract is so small has long puzzled residents. Bryan Mekechuk, who lives in the neighborhood with

17 homes on a neighboring site.

Mekechuk also ran into a man who said he had laid out the subdivision for Eichler. The man told Bryan,

wife Jo-Anne Sinclair, dug through city papers to discover this history, and found out that Eichler originally planned to build another grouping of

“Eichler couldn’t sell the homes on Via Sereno fast enough, and Eichler needed to liquidate the land” for the other subdivision.

SERENO SPECTRUM. At the home of David Frankel and Karl Brown (top right and left, middle left), who maintain “an appreciation for the [Eichler] architecture and architects,” says David, “but trying to preserve that style while still having a 21st century experience.” Nearby is Bryan Mekechuk (right middle and bottom), who did an amazing two-story rebuild of his home—with its second story underground, and as green as can be.

“In your 20s, you’re not raising family, so you work long hours,” Tim says.

“You have plenty of time. Why not?”

But today, he says, “My manager is happy to say, ‘Go home, be with your family.’”

Jennifer says of her husband, “He’s at every school conference, every teacher conference, every school event.”

And owning an Eichler makes it easy to mix work with play. Patrick Sullivan mentions a party he gave for his colleagues, 100 people or so enjoying a barbecue. “People barely came inside,” he says.

Adding to the tract’s creative flair is its artistic community. Artists have lived in the tract from the start, say Ned and Marian Gault, who have 12 C A M O D E R N

mansion and garden, and a button accordionist who can be heard in German restaurants. She’s a nationally known calligrapher who travels to teach, and a watercolor painter, printmaker, and greeting card maker.

Both are folk dancers, and for 37 years they ran the well-known troupe Ensemble International, performing in Russia, Scandinavia, Israel, and other locales. Both continue to teach dancing.

Together with their neighbor, L.D. Hirschklau, a ceramicist, they put on the annual ‘Art on the Court’ exhibit and sale. Other artists from the area take part as well, in their homes and outside, at the end of Via Sereno.

“We used to have ten other artists on the street,” Marian says. Today

Over the years the neighborhood has mostly maintained its looks, at least on the exterior of the homes. There is no homeowner association and no enforce-

home—but not the lighting. “I couldn’t see a damn thing in the kitchen with the stupid little globes,” he says. “So now we have what are 21st century lights.”

CREATIVE FLAIR. Ned and Marian Gault (top right), who have lived in their Monte Sereno Eichler (top left) since 1977, have kept their home original-looking ever since. The Gaults also embrace the arts—folk dancing, music, artmaking—and Marian displays her own work on the walls of their home (top right).

Laura and Eric (above right, at the piano) Roenicke live down the block in the former home of Laura’s parents.

On the night pictured here (above), daughter Isabella turned the atrium into a movie theater for her friends. ment of architectural guidelines.

Laura Roenicke remembers one Eichler being shingled to resemble “a Santa Cruz beach house.” “That was the most talked about disaster thing I remember,” she says.

Still, the folks on Via Sereno are not, in the main, Eichler purists. David Frankel loves the architecture of his

“There is a whole spectrum of people [on Via Sereno] who know Eichlers, and how they feel about them.

There are some who want to keep them pristine. Some think they’re just junk houses that were built cheaply and have outlived their useful life,” says David, who shares his home with partner Karl Brown. “We’re in the middle, more

towards having an appreciation for the architecture and architects, but trying to preserve that style while still having a 21st century experience.”

For a time, Laura Roenicke thought about covering her atrium, “but Eric has always loved it, and

I’ve come to like it,” she says.

The atrium is where Eric starts his day. “Every morning I sit here and I look out, and I feel the breeze come in, and it’s great. I look at the big tree. I feel the air. The sun is coming up. I hear the geese flying by. It’s a good start to the morning,” he says.

Ned and Marian Gault have simply never changed their home—other than rebuilding a wall after a fire.

By far the greatest change to a Monte Sereno Eichler is Bryan Mekechuk’s amazing, colossal rebuild of his home— turning it into a 21st century, two-story home—but one that doesn’t tower over its neighbors because the added story is below ground.

The home also pays respect to its neighbors by retaining—or rather, reconstructing—a façade that strongly resembles the original Eichler.

Inside, though, it is completely open from basement to covered atrium, with pedestrian bridges—one of them

glass-bottomed—providing views of the living areas below.

“We’re from Canada,” Bryan says.

“In Canada everybody has basements.

We came to California and there were no basements here. So we thought, let’s do it here.”

The house aims to be as green as can be, with solar panels, geothermal heat exchange, zero net energy use, and rainwater harvesting.

The lot has been a jobsite for years, but the job is nearly done. “I think everyone is okay now,” Bryan says of the neighbors. “They’d like to see the yard cleaned up.”

Like several of their neighbors, Patrick and Shelley Sullivan arrived not knowing about Eichlers. They have become fans, rejoicing when they found a box in their garage filled with original globe lamps—which they re-installed.

“We heard from talking to the neighbors that the globes were kind of sacred,” Patrick says.

“You find that most of the Eichler enthusiasts are trying to keep their homes pure,” Shelley says.

“We are real Eichler enthusiasts,” she says. “It’s fun to talk about the history.

We find ourselves talking about our houses a lot [with neighbors]. That may seem odd to people, but you have a link in some way. You’re part of a club.”

Patrick adds, “Appreciation of Eichlers becomes contagious.” ■ Additional photography: Don DeBold C A M O D E R N 13

■ART ABOUT THE HOUSE

Charles Schridde and the mid-century ad men of Motorola—staging the greatest modern homes the world has never seen Story: Jack Levitan

They have risen in Palm Springs, brand new ‘Eichlers’ inspired by the homes built by Joe Eichler during the mid-century. There’s even a developer in Idaho who’s building Eichler Country Club Estates, “an urban micro-development” inspired by Joe’s original homes.

But come on, developers. The world already has 11,000 perfectly fine, real Eichlers. If you want to revive something from the mid-century that will truly bring something new to the world, how about building a few Schriddes?

Charles Schridde (1926-2011, pronounced Shrid-ee) may be the greatest mid-century modern residential ‘architect’ you’ve never heard of. That’s because he wasn’t an architect and he never intended his designs to be built.

So none were.

As far as we know.

And it’s a crime that they weren’t.

“I, for one, wouldn’t mind living in a pad like the ones Mr. Schridde envisioned,” design fan Chris Alm confessed on his blog Ultra Swank. “I guess the closest thing would be [Walt] Disney’s [Monsanto] House of the Future.”

At the start of the 1960s Schridde emerged as perhaps the greatest designer of wild, elegant modern homes who never studied architecture and was far from being a committed modernist.

But somewhere, deep inside, it’s clear that Schridde felt the spark of the modern. How else could he have devised what Santa Monica graphic designer Steve Kosareff calls the mid-century modern “dreamscapes” that ran in a series of ads, each one an expansive two-page spread, for Motorola televisions and hi-fi stereo consoles in Life and Saturday Evening Post magazines in 1961 and 1962?

“They were unique,” says Kosareff, author of the book Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising. “I don’t remember anything like them.”

“They have a very landscape, wide-screen format, so your vision is 14 C A M O D E R N

Dreamscapes of elegance

SPARK OF THE MODERN. At the start of the 1960s Charles Schridde emerged as perhaps the greatest designer of wild, elegant modern homes (like the ones in this spread) who never studied architecture.

surrounded in it when you’re looking at it in a magazine.”

According to the firm Motorola Solutions, which retains the Motorola archive, their ‘futuristic lifestyle’ series of ads incorporated up to three other artists—Eyvind Earle, George Bertels, and Leon Deller. (For more about them and their work, see the sidebar and spread on pages 18 and 19 here.)

The campaign was handled for Motorola by the Leo Burnett Company, a marketing firm based in Chicago.

What does a Schridde look like?

Often the home is placed in an exotic, sometimes near-unbuildable setting —something Joe Eichler avoided.

Schridde’s homes dangle over the edge of cliffs, hover over cities, or are built atop waterfalls or incorporate waterfalls into their décor.

But Schriddes are more than outrageous. They can suggest intimacy à la Frank Lloyd Wright, provide playful curves à la John Lautner, or introduce imposing interior boulders à la Albert Frey.

And just as Eichler’s photographer, Ernie Braun, populated Eichler homes with beautiful people doing ordinary suburban things—creating art, enjoying cocktails, spending time with the kids—

Schridde too populated his homes with beautiful people.

Except Schridde’s people were always watching a Motorola TV or listening to a Motorola hi-fi—sometimes while dancing. You will occasionally see a character in jeans in a Schridde home, or a woman exercising in leotards. But in the main, elegance is the word.

Surprisingly, according to his daughter, Melanie Schridde, Charles Schridde

never expressed interest in modern architecture—though it must be said she was born in 1968, years after his Motorola venture.

There is little record of Schridde ever drawing anything as wildly modern as his Motorola campaign again, though he drew mid-century modern homes in at least a few other works. Schridde did much of his commercial work for Detroit automakers.

modern architecture and design.

Indeed, when Schridde left the world of commercial illustration for fine art he hewed to a traditional, sometimes impressionistic style that brought him a degree of fame.

Still, lifelong friend and fellow illustrator Harry Borgman says he can see a bit of Charlie in the Motorola ads.

WIDE-SCREEN DREAMS. Schridde’s homes were often set in near-unbuildable settings—even atop waterfalls (top left). Top right: Schridde circa early 1960s. Above: A modern home from a 1960s Schridde car ad.

The Schridde family lived a comfortable suburban life, Melanie recalls, but not in a glass-walled home cantilevered over a waterfall. Their home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (incidentally, home to the legendary Cranford Academy of Art) was traditional.

“We had a couple of mid-century [furniture] pieces,” Melanie says, “but for the most part everything was antiques from the 1800s. My mother was German, and it was her taste. It was his taste too. We had more frilly stuff, more like French, English, even German antique furniture.”

Melanie doesn’t recall any other works by her dad that played on

Asked if Schridde resembled the elegant people shown in the ads, Borgman answered, “I’d say yes. He was a fun-loving guy. He was married to a beautiful German model at the time.

Her name was Jutta. He really enjoyed himself. He lived it up and had a house on a lake here in Michigan.”

That house too was traditional, Borgman says.

Schridde was a man who remade himself several times, both to keep up with the changing market for his wares and to enjoy his art-making.

Working in and around Detroit in the 1960s as a commercial illustrator, “He did everything—car photography, C A M O D E R N 15

■ART ABOUT THE HOUSE car illustration, alcohol ads. He did a lot of car catalogs, both with illustrations and photography,” Melanie says.

Schridde, who’d never wanted to do anything but art, had studied at several schools, including the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he started at age 17, according to his daughter. But Melanie doesn’t believe he ever got a degree.

By the start of the 1960s, in his

early 30s, Schridde was an in-demand illustrator with his own readily identifiable style, Borgman says.

From roughly 1958 to 1968 “a bunch of us [illustrators] decided to be freelancers and rented a home in Detroit where we would all have our little studios,” Borgman says.

“I think he did really well,” Borgman says of his friend. “Detroit was a good place for artists at that time. It

ELEGANCE IS THE WORD. Schridde’s art, like the illustration above in the Motorola ad and the others that surround it, promoted the company’s TVs and stereo hi-fis in popular national periodicals Life and Saturday Evening Post. was a booming art town because of the auto industry.”

But work could be hard.

“We had tough deadlines,” Borgman says. “We’d work till one in the morning, then we’d go out and have a couple of drinks together with the other artists. There was a period every year, for three months we’d be working day and night to get the catalogs out, from May to June.”

When Schridde began the Motorola ads, Borgman says, he was working for New Center Studios in Detroit, “probably the biggest [art] studio in town.”

16 C A M O D E R N

Melanie says Charles got the assignment by answering the challenge to show “a neat place to watch TV.” “I don’t know how he came up with those ideas,” she says of her dad’s fantastic dreamscapes. “He used photos for his paintings and would have models pose. He would combine a photo of a sailboat and a person and a dog, and people dancing.”

“For one Motorola ad, there’s an image of a woman peering through these bushes. That was a photo of my mom peering through bushes,” she says.

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C A M O D E R N 17

■ART ABOUT THE HOUSE DREAMSCAPES (continued from pg 16)

Borgman says Schridde’s Motorola ads were admired. “His mind started going [putting his imagination into overdrive]. He was pretty enthusiastic about it,” Borgman says.

“As an illustrator one gets quite a variety of assignments,” Borgman says.

“An illustrator must always do some research. I’m sure that Charlie looked through architectural books and magazines for ideas.

“The art director probably asked him to do several idea sketches which would be shown to the client. They would pick out sketches that they liked and ask Charlie to develop them further.

Charlie was a pretty creative guy, and I’m certain that a lot of the designs were his own. And as for the actions in the houses, they would be Charlie’s ideas.”

The text for the ads even made reference to Schridde’s drawings.

“This modern high-rise dwelling makes it possible to ‘get away’ from the city without leaving it,” read the

Other artists of the MOTOROLA campaign Besides Charles Schridde, there were other artists who contributed to Motorola’s ‘futuristic lifestyle’ campaign.

Although most of the illustrations for that series were by Schridde, at least two other illustrators produced images. And one architect either created illustrations, or contributed to them by supplying architectural designs.

The best known of these artists, both today and at the time, was Eyvind Earle (1916-2000), a prolific watercolor artist and designer who did well in the 1940s with a line of Christmas cards and won fame in the 1950s and ‘60s designing for Walt Disney.

Earle was responsible for the backgrounds and general look for

copy in an ad for a ‘Dynamic Sound Focus’ hi-fi. “Curved glass window wall forms a panoramic view of the city and surrounding countryside.

Reflecting pool and shrubbery add warmth to ultramodern room setting, accented by dome ceiling.”

As the 1960s ended, carmakers were turning from hand-drawn illustrations to photos for their ads and catalogs. Unlike some illustrators, who lost jobs, Schridde switched from pen and pencil to photography.

18 C A M O D E R N

such Disney films as ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

George Bertels, who also drew fantastical home settings for Motorola, was another commercial artist working in Detroit. For a time in the 1960s he drew illustrations for Corvette News magazine.

Some of the Motorola ads also cite an architect named Leon Deller as responsible for their design. It is not clear, however, whether Deller actually drew the illustrations based on those designs. Perhaps it was Schridde himself.

Designs by Earle, Bertels, and Deller appear here in this twopage spread.

An engaging guy, Schridde enjoyed chatting with some of the stars he photographed for the auto companies —legendary pilot Chuck Yeager, auto racer Dale Earnhard, engineer John DeLorean, and actor Robert Redford.

Melanie remembers that her father was obsessed with one topic—art.

He worked at it hard, and worked at it most of the time. “He lived and breathed art. That’s all he wanted to talk about,” Melanie says.

She recalls going to museums

FUTURISTIC TEAM. George Bertels’ work (top) is found in the Motorola series. Above: Likely by Charles Schridde. with her father and just sitting before paintings. He loved Maxfield Parrish, Edward Hopper, Botticelli, Rubens, Dali, “the Dutch artists,” Egon Schiele, Klimt, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet.

“He grew up during the Depression.

That’s why he was focused on money and selling things. He didn’t want to live the way he did as a child,” Melanie says.

“I went with him when he was in

his 80s to a reunion of his elementary school,” she says. “A woman told me he did a wood etching of Sleepy from [Snow White and] ‘the Seven Dwarves’ and sold it to her for ten cents. He wanted his art to produce a livelihood, a living for him. And he did. He was around [age] ten.”

In the mid-1990s Schridde remade himself again, this time as a fine artist focusing on Western themes, cowboys, mountain men, landscapes. He con-

rural Illinois, had always loved the outdoors, she says.

There’s even a book on these later career paintings, now collectable— Charles Schridde, Western Impressionism.

In 1993 Schridde moved to Laguna Beach in Southern California, where he met his second wife at, where else, the Laguna Beach Art Museum. For a couple of years they lived in South Africa, where Charles painted and photographed people, animals, and landscape.

“Excuse my language,” Melanie says.

“He had balls.”

“He was on a safari, and they were all told not to stand up, not to disturb the elephants,” she says. “My dad stood up. He did that so the elephant would charge. He got an amazing photograph of a charging bull.”

By 2006 Schridde was living in a special retirement home—one devoted to, what else, the arts. The Burbank Senior Artists Colony was special enough that the New York Times profiled the place as “the country’s first apartment community for creative older people.”

“This is a place,” reporter Patricia Leigh Brown wrote, “where amateurs discovering their inner Picassos in retirement can commune with working pros like Charlie Schridde, a painter in his 70s from the ‘cowboy impressionist’ school who resembles the grizzled trappers of his canvases.” ■

MOTOROLA MEN. Top left: Illustration by Eyvind Earle. The other three on this page are attributed to Leon Deller. tinued to take photos, many as source material for paintings.

Melanie says he would attend rodeos, taking dozens of photos, and then used the photos as bases for his paintings. Schridde, who’d spent his early years growing up on a farm in

Illustrations: courtesy Motorola Solutions, Leo Burnett Company, Inc. Photography: courtesy Melanie Schridde Special thanks to Sue Topp, manager of Heritage Communications & Archives at Motorola Solutions, for her research assistance C A M O D E R N 19

■MODERN RENEWAL

Inflamed Eichler owners and remodeling pros alike facing a quagmire over California’s Title 24 building regulations Story: Tanja Kern

Title 24 California Energy Code restrictions on home remodels have Bay Area cities sputtering, contractors fuming, and homeowners running on empty—both in patience and in their pocketbooks.

“The whole topic of Title 24 restrictions—it’s pretty crazy,” says San Francisco architect John Klopf of Klopf Architecture. “I’m not sure if any homeowners, and even some contractors, are up to date with the most recent requirements.”

California’s energy efficiency standards for buildings, designed to reduce wasteful consumption of energy, have become a quagmire of confusing communications and inconsistent expectations. The standards adopted into the California Code of Regulations (Title 24, Part 6) apply to newly constructed buildings and additions along with alterations to existing buildings.

Under the California Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan, all new residential construction must be net zero energy by 2020. What that means is that all new homes built after 2020 will need to produce more energy than they consume.

While existing Eichlers and other mid-century modern homes don’t fall under the net zero guidelines, updates to current code are pushing them closer to that reality, as restrictions continue to impact MCM owners’ ability to preserve the original look of their homes.

Eichler-preferred aluminum-framed windows and sliding-glass doors are especially hard-hit by Title 24’s demands.

“I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years, [providing] windows and sliders to Eichler owners who want to upgrade their old single panes without changing the look,” says Dave Stellman, owner of Palo Alto Glass. “However, over the past few years…we’ve had to explain the new [Title 24] rules to homeown20 C A M O D E R N

ers…and we’ve determined that we can’t keep beating our heads against the wall trying to install slim aluminum windows in Eichlers.”

Why is that? Because these days, California building codes are much more complex than they used to be. Today’s remodels must meet Title 24 compliance when the changes impact the exterior building envelope—including walls, windows and doors, and roofs—or when they affect mechanical systems like heating, air conditioning, and ventilation (HVAC), in situations such as replacing ductwork or upgrading the water heater.

Interior and exterior lighting projects can also be affected, depending on the project, such as a permitted kitchen remodel in which lighting is getting changed out.

Repairs of pre-existing components or systems, such as repairing a broken pane of glass or replacing the heating element of a water heater, do not have to follow Title 24 requirements.

Two compliance methods There are two methods used to substantiate that the improvements made comply to today’s standards: prescriptive and performance. The prescriptive method requires mandatory minimums for changes, such as R-values in insulation, but not all remodels will qualify for that method. (Find out if your project qualifies, in chapter nine of the 2016 Residential Compliance Manual: Additions, Alterations and Repairs.)

Home projects that don’t fall under the prescriptive method need to follow the performance method, which

RUNNING ON EMPTY. California’s Title 24 restrictions continue to impact Eichler and other MCM owners’ ability to preserve the original look of their homes. In coming years, the situation is expected to get worse. is usually calculated by architects and remodelers through modeling software approved by the California Energy Commission. There are two ways to analyze the building using this method: compliance with thirdparty verification of all existing conditions altered, or compliance without third-party verification.

What’s a homeowner to do? One option is to avoid doing remodels that you don’t have to do. Another option is for homeowners to research the Title 24 compliance measures themselves and hope that their home-improvement changes keep up with all Title 24 details and changes over time.

Beware going piecemeal Where homeowners can go wrong is by doing projects in a piecemeal fashion, as repairs spring up or as homeowners are able to budget for improvements.

In an ideal world, homeowners should

plan out all the improvements and repairs they anticipate doing over time, and then map them out in an order that can take Title 24 requirements into consideration.

“A Iot of the advice I give to homeowners who are thinking about projects is what order to do things in,” Klopf says. “Be careful, because you might wish you hadn’t spent the money on something before, and now you can’t pass code.”

This matters particularly with energy-related systems. For example, if a home needs a new roof, whatever R-value you choose becomes a fixed value in your Title 24 report.

“If you go with an R-19 roof, for example, you can’t in the future go back and go R-38 to make up for having a little less insulation in your windows— because you’ve already spent the money [a considerable sum] on the roof,” Klopf says. “Most people don’t have the

specified for a project. And even if there were (such as a list of Title 24-compliant light fixtures, for example), it doesn’t mean each of those fixtures would be compliant for every project.

While some homeowners may not want to hire professionals for their projects, not doing so can potentially end up costing more than if they had budgeted for professional assistance.

“A vast majority of our clients want us to help them specify a specific window or door that we talked about,” Klopf says. “When you think about how something even as simple as a lighting fixture can knock you out of compliance, it makes you appreciate having professional help. There are so many requirements—we have a whole

dows do not satisfy the aesthetic preferences of most MCM homeowners. Under the performance method, homeowners can install doors and windows with higher energy values, such as aluminum windows, as long as there are offsetting measures installed elsewhere in the house.

Some common replacements in an Eichler home are the large fixed-pane windows, smaller sliding windows, and sliding-glass doors.

Changing a fixed window to an operable one is generally not recommended because it can interfere with the aesthetic and disrupt sight lines.

Thin, aluminum-framed replacements, such as those manufactured by the Arcadia and Blomberg companies, offer the preferred aesthetic among MCM owners, architects, and contractors.

“We like to do an aluminum solution when we can, but [with code compliance in mind,] the aluminum solutions are just not as energy efficient, so you have to be very careful to pick just the right ones,” Klopf says.

Today, however, the path of least resistance is to install code-compliant vinyl doors and windows. Vinyl, while energy efficient, hasn’t yet been engineered with frames thin enough to blend with the aesthetic of MCM homes. Another issue with vinyl is color. Their white frames are a stark contrast to the slim aluminum ones that historically have been part of the Eichler look.

EXTERIOR ENVELOPE. Hard-hit by Title 24’s demands are Eichler-preferred aluminum-framed windows and sliding-glass doors (like those above). Above right: Dave Stellman and Kim Denton (left) of Palo Alto Glass. budget to re-do costly projects.”

Another example is if you want to replace your electrical system, but you already installed a foam roof. To practically pull off the electrical upgrade, you would have to penetrate the foam roof to run conduit.

Redundant remodeling Klopf references a recent example in which his homeowner clients had to replace windows—not intended to be part of their new remodeling project—

because the roof had already been done.

“They weren’t upgrading the heating system, and we didn’t have any other levers, so we had to just start pushing out windows,” Klopf says.

“Of course, the owners now have nice, new windows that will be more comfortable and energy efficient, but they didn’t want to spend the money, yet had to for the project.”

Unfortunately, there is no uniform resource, online or otherwise, available for building products that would be

slew of boilerplate notes on our drawings just to pass code.”

Windows and sliders The new codes require that any replacement doors and windows meet Title 24 requirements. Under the prescriptive method, every door and window must meet the maximum energy requirement, with no exceptions. Common replacements for the prescriptive method are vinyl frames with low-e glass.

However, traditional vinyl win-

“You can get a white vinyl window frame painted silver or black on the outside,” says Kim Denton, who manages sales for Palo Alto Glass, “but on the inside It’s still going to be white.

“Then there’s also just the material itself—vinyl. It feels like a plastic window, so a lot of people feel that it’s not as high quality. Also, unlike the aluminum window that has very slim framing, vinyl is always quite a bit thicker.”

A vinyl option that recently entered the marketplace is the Trinsic Series C A M O D E R N 21

■MODERN RENEWAL

by Milgard, which reportedly offers an expansive glass area with a frame that is narrower than traditional vinyl windows. “It’s thinner than their [Milgard’s] other series of windows, but it’s still wider than aluminum,” Denton admits.

For those with a larger budget, custom wood windows may be an option, but again they lack the super-slim profiles found in aluminum windows.

Two wood options are high-end brands Quantum and Duratherm, with the latter preferred among architects of sleek, contemporary-styled homes.

Surprise challenge Phil Alden, an Eicher owner in Sunnyvale, recently encountered an unexpected challenge while upgrading windows related to Title 24 reporting requirements and offsetting energysaving measures.

Alden planned to replace a subset of windows in the bedroom and bathrooms but was disappointed to find out that, because he had previously replaced just a few windows in the first leg of his remodel, his choice of window types and manufacturers to complete the project were limited in order to meet the energy measurements.

“This is apparently not an issue when people replace all their Eichler windows and sliding doors at one time, but it’s a serious problem when just replacing a subset,” Alden says.

“Consequently, we’re now having to consider a lower-quality, less aesthetically pleasing vinyl-framed window that lacks many features we liked and that preserved the original look of our Eichler,” Alden says. He is also concerned that mixing in vinyl windows with the aluminum ones may impact the future resale value of his home.

Not all California municipalities, however, are steering homeowners to vinyl window replacements, according to Palo Alto Glass. Interpretation of Title 24 regulations varies from city to city; some follow the letter of the law, while others take a slightly more lenient approach. As a result, the juxtapositions, from one locale to the next, make it confusing for contractors and homeowners to navigate.

“My first question to any inquiring homeowner is, ‘What city do you live in?’ because that will affect our approach to the project,” Palo Alto Glass’ Denton says. “In some cities, I have to say, ‘I’m really sorry, but your city has put you and me in a very difficult position, and this is all we can offer you.

22 C A M O D E R N

That’s when we start getting into alternative solutions.”

Some of those solutions may involve just replacing window glass with tempered glass, and leaving the existing sliders and changing them to tempered glass that’s not double pane.

“Each project is its own thing,” Denton says. “We balance what we can offer them—what will give the homeowner the most benefit while making the city happy.”

Creative solutions In Northern California’s climate zone, when 50 percent or more of a roof is being replaced, the prescriptive method must be used to meet cool roof requirements. One exception is when a home addition has fewer than 300 square feet of roofing, a minimum of R-38 attic insulation is used.

For many remodels, homeowners are opting for foam roofs that can be built up to achieve the required R-value necessary to meet the energy requirements. Foam is sprayed to a thickness that reaches the desired R-value, adding R-7 per inch. Low areas can be built up with additional foam, and the application can work around new HVAC ducting, electrical, solar panels, and skylights.

While raising the level of a roof with sprayed foam can bring about a desired R-value, there are other cases in which the thickening of a roof installation can lead to yet another design conundrum.

ROOF MEETS SOLAR. Top: A foam roof coupled with a rooftop solar-panel array—a cost-efficient “roof system under your solar panels that will last a minimum of 30 years,” points out Dura-Foam’s Jarom Feriante. Above: Unico low-profile HVAC installation in progress: best addressed when roof replacement is also underway.

“Sometimes it’s no big deal when you don’t really see it, but sometimes a thicker roof is a big deal—like if there’s no roof overhang,” Klopf says. “Do you add a fascia board or a wall? It might have to go taller than you would like, and then you have to carry it around the whole house.”

In cases where there aren’t a lot of options, the homeowner must get creative with solutions, which adds costs.

Some solutions for dealing with taller rooflines include extending the home’s siding higher to cover the edge of the taller roof or using a metal coping that covers the edge.

Walls a focus for 2020 Rules for better-insulated walls are anticipated to be part of Title 24’s 2020

Building Efficiency Standard to improve comfort and energy savings. The goal of this move is to keep the heat out during the summer and warm air in during the winter, thus making a home more resilient to climate change.

The efficiency of these walls are measured in U-values (sometimes referred to as heat transfer coefficients), which measure how effective they are at preventing heat from transmitting between the inside and the outside of the home.

For wall insulation, standard fiberglass-insulation batts can practically be added when replacing exterior siding.

If exterior walls are going to remain shut, however, ‘blown’ (spray foam) insulation on the inside remains an option once the interior paneling is removed.

Heating and cooling If a home’s heating and cooling system is left unchanged as part of an addition or alteration, then compliance with the requirements for altered HVAC systems may not be necessary.

Thankfully, extension of a duct is not considered a change to the existing heating and cooling equipment. However, new ducts must meet mandatory

requirements, and any changes can certainly impact aesthetics, both on the roof and inside the house, depending on the kind of system installed.

For this reason, it is important that HVAC issues be addressed when your roof and other building envelope projects are being considered.

Rooftop solar demands Starting in 2020, Title 24 will require

virtually all new homes in California to incorporate rooftop solar. However, the accompanying Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is expected to continue to be available to all homeowners, allowing them to claim a credit for 30 percent of all costs related to their solar panel installation. This includes costs such as roof repairs, prep work, supplies, and labor costs.

Jarom Feriante of Dura-Foam Roof-

that will last a minimum of 30 years.”

One of the pros of solar power is that homeowners can point the solar panels in any direction for power generation. While some panel installations can be eyesores on a roof if they are not laid flat and out of view, today’s solar-panel systems can be installed horizontal on a flat roof and still create as much as 85 percent efficiency, Klopf points out.

Overall, Title 24 isn’t going away, so what’s a homeowner to do? Palo Alto Glass’ Dave Stellman suggests that Eichler owners should talk with their city building officials to encourage them to look more closely at the special home-improvement challenges that affect the Eichler home’s design aesthetic.

“We can’t continue to put Eichlers under the same code as conventional homes,” Stellman says.

What’s more, he adds, “A lot of customers get mad, and they get mad at us.

We were trying to tell them, don’t get mad at us—get mad at your city.” ■ Photography: Sabrina Huang, David Toerge, Jonathan Braun; and courtesy Dura-Foam Roofing & Solar Center, Milgard Windows & Doors

NOT SO SLEEK. Top left: An installation of Milgard’s Trinsic Series vinyl windows and sliders: “Still wider [framing] than aluminum,” says Palo Alto Glass’ Kim Denton. Above: Fiberglass-insulation batts being installed inside an interior wall. Top right: The 2016 Residential Compliance Manual: a source of project-qualifying information for homeowners. Near right: Klopf Architecture’s John Klopf (left) and Dura-Foam’s Jarom Feriante.

ing & Solar Center, based in Menlo Park, encourages Eichler owners to consider a foam roof when in the market for a rooftop solar-panel array.

“Pulling down [temporarily removing] a solar power system to allow for roof replacement costs at least one dollar per watt. For example, removing a 7,500-watt solarpower system, and then re-installing it again to allow roof replacement, would cost around $7,500 dollars.

To be cost efficient, you really need a roof system under your solar panels

STORY RESOURCES Klopf Architecture John Klopf Klopfarchitecture.com

Palo Alto Glass Dave Stellman, Kim Denton Paloaltoglass.com

Dura-Foam Roofing & Solar Center Jarom Feriante Dura-foam.com C A M O D E R N 23

■CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

Staving off threatening neighborhood changes —before the inevitable wakeup call hits home Story: Dave Weinstein

Joe Eichler sold more than suburban homes. He sold a dream of California suburbia with easy living both indoors and out—not to mention atriums and courtyards that were a bit of both.

There would be privacy from peering eyes—in enclosed backyards in neighborhoods where people dote on their kids, set up easels in their atriums, and enjoy canapés around the pool.

To achieve this dream, an Eichler neighborhood should be peaceful. But should it also be vigilant, protective, and proactive?

Over the past few years neighborhood after neighborhood in Silicon Valley has been rocked when owners have torn down single-story homes or added a second story.

Neighbors, perhaps lulled by quiescence and distracted by the fast-moving world around them, had to scramble at the last minute to preserve their neighborhoods.

Back in 2015, Fan and Tracy Zhang sprung into action, serving pizza to neighbors to build consensus against a proposal to build two-story homes overlooking their Eichler tract in Sunnyvale.

This was a real rush job, as Fan Zhang had heard about the project just days before the city could approve it.

Neighbors made their voices heard.

They convinced the developer to build single-story homes instead, and a privacy fence.

On top of that, Zhang and his neighbors got single-story zoning for their part of the tract—just in case.

A year later, also in Sunnyvale, what neighbor John Sullivan called “a monster house” was proposed for Fairbrae Addition, spurring people there to seek and get single-story zoning to protect them from such intrusions—in the future. But they had acted too late to stop the first monster.

Since then, any number of Sunnyvale Eichler areas have sought and 24 C A M O D E R N

WHY WAIT ‘til it’s too late? received such zoning protection.

And in Palo Alto, a proposal in 2014 to tear down an Eichler in a small tract on Louis Road helped set off a brouhaha, as several Eichler neighborhoods sought zoning protection. The result included new citywide Eichler guidelines that some homeowners believe don’t have enough teeth.

“For a lot of us in the neighborhood, it’s been a bit of a wakeup call,” neighbor Lynn Drake said in 2014 of the Louis Road and other such Palo Alto proposals.

Being proactive pays off Why should residents who live in mid-century modern neighborhoods wait for wakeup calls? Why not get out in front of the issue, before bulldozers arrive?

That’s what occurred to homeowers who live in the three Eichler tracts in the Southern California city of Orange.

They began pushing for historic designation of their tracts almost a decade ago—and recently achieved their goal. In November 2018, the Orange City Council made the neighborhoods local historic districts and imposed design standards that restrict changes that can be made to homes that can be seen from the street.

“Now,” says Adrian Turner, a neighbor who took part in the effort, “ there’s solid protection in place for the neighborhood.”

Another example of Eichler people getting ahead of the game can be found in Marin County, and there’s a third in Santa Clara.

What all three examples show is, no matter what strategy residents seek

INTRUSION. When the wakeup call arrived in Terra Linda years ago, it came as the monster home above. to preserve their neighborhood—zoning changes, historic districts, design guidelines enforced by a homeowners’ association or by a city or county—the process takes a long time.

It requires historical and planning code research, paperwork, attending meetings—and winning over your neighbors.

Architect and urban designer Daniel Hillmer, who helped Marin develop Eichler guidelines, says, “Not everybody agrees that more rules are better.

It’s highly political, in that regard.”

In Orange, efforts to preserve the three, largely intact tracts—Fairhaven, Fairmeadow, and Fairhills—were underway before 2010. The homes were built from 1960 to 1963. Real estate broker Kelly Laule launched an effort

back then to place the homes on the National Register.

National vs. local status Soon afterwards, other Orange Eichler residents began working to create a local historic district instead for the Eichlers.

‘Local’ may not sound as grand as ‘national,’ but a local district can be powerful. Often, cities impose regulations that have real teeth, as the Orange Eichlers did last November. No such regulations come with national recognition.

Orange’s National Register effort, meanwhile, has been on hold, but is likely to re-emerge now that the local districts have been created.

“The National Register is nice,” says resident Tracy Ettinger, who has been involved in the local district effort, “but

I think it’s a little more [like] icing on the cake. The nitty-gritty, the rules that can be enforced, that’s from the city.”

More than regulations, historic designation will bring tax benefits to owners who sign a Mills Act contract with the city, she notes. Under state law, property taxes can be reduced if the funds are used to maintain and restore historic properties.

Savings for owners can be significant.

The opportunity to benefit from the Mills Act was one motivator, but far from the only one that got Eichler own-

horrible things,” she says.

And in one of the Orange tracts, “a few years ago somebody built a little box on the side of an Eichler. It wasn’t a twostory, but a ten-foot-tall box planted on the side of the Eichler that sailed right through the city [approval].”

“There’s a character to the neighborhood—the long, low homes,” says Ettinger, a commercial interior designer who lives in the Fairhills tract. “A few bad remodels can zap that character immediately.”

there began working to preserve Eichler neighborhoods. In the waning days of the 20th century Daniel Hillmer was hired to improve how county planners dealt with projects in Eichler areas.

Much of his time was spent in Upper Lucas Valley, which today has perhaps the strongest design review anywhere, overseen by its homeowners association—in fact, stronger than Hillmer would have suggested.

Hillmer says he had sought a “balance

able and not desirable.

Today, Hillmer says, “In Marin, the policies and programs [for Eichler preservation] are in place.”

In Marin, as in Orange, no looming threat spurred people into action. The impetus was more bureaucratic.

“It was part of a cycle of updates for community plans,” Hillmer says.

“So much activity was taking place with new residential, especially with additions. And we had a mandate from the state to streamline the building process.”

Hillmer says, however, that midway through the process, a homeowner built an illegal, two-story home in Lucas Valley, which caught people’s attention.

Terry Bremer, who served for years on the Lucas Valley Homeowners Association’s Architectural Review Committee, recalled the incident in a 2002 interview. “One Labor Day weekend people built a second

between helping to preserve” neighborhood character and “people’s freedom.”

Folks from Lucas Valley played a “leading-edge role” in devising the guidelines for Eichlers countywide, he says. Meetings held at a nearby school “were always packed,” he says.

The goal was to streamline the permit process and develop clear design guidelines so owners would know what was allowable and not allowable, desir-

story, and it was almost finished by the time Monday rolled around and people noticed it.”

The event only made people in Lucas Valley more determined to prevent such developments in the future.

SAFETY ZONE. Top: The streetscape here suggests harmony—and it will continue if its neighbors stay vigilant, protective, and proactive. Near right: Back in 2015, Fan Zhang of Sunnyvale recreated the angle of view a proposed monster home would have peering into its Eichler neighbor. It was similar to the rear view above.

Far right: Daniel Hillmer at the Lucas Valley Community Center (top), Orange Eichler owner Tracy Ettinger (bottom). ers in Orange behind historic designation, Marissa Moshier, the city’s historic preservation planner, says. “People in the Eichler neighborhoods had a lot of enthusiasm whether or not there were financial incentives.”

Although there was no single disastrous remodel that got people in Orange working to attain historic status, Ettinger says, “We’ve got horrible examples of two-story additions in every neighborhood that everybody hates.”

“And we were watching what was happening in other neighborhoods, and up north, where the people are dumping a lot of money into their homes and doing some

Although the effort to preserve the neighborhood first started nearly a decade go, Ettinger says, it really sped up five years later once city planners got involved.

Grassroots efforts come alive A group of residents formed HOME (Historic Orange Midcentury Eichlers), and sent a petition through the neighborhood to show support.

“We pretty easily got all the signatures we needed. It was well over a majority,” Ettinger says.

Marin County also got a jump on things. Years before mid-century modern became a byword, county and city planners and residents

Scene at Pomeroy Green Like the folks in Orange, some people in an Eichler condo complex in Santa Clara, Pomeroy Green, were waiting C A M O D E R N 25

■CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ and watching until their neighborhood turned 50—and then they moved towards historic designation.

“We were built in 1963,” Ken Kratz says, “and the day before we became 50 years old [in 2013] I was on it.”

But five years later, Pomeroy Green, with 138 units in a grouping of buildings surrounded by parks and walkways, is still not on the National Register.

And efforts to use its potential historic status to stave off a proposed new residential complex that residents fear would loom over their homes have failed. So far. A suit has been filed to overturn city approval of the project.

Because Pomeroy Green is a cooperatively owned townhouse community, residents don’t have to fear that individual owners will do exterior changes. But they do have to worry about developments next

First, figure out what you’re after.

Is securing backyard privacy the main thing? Then see if your city has a mechanism for banning homes over a certain height. It doesn’t? Ask the council to create one.

Or would you rather go further and preserve the neighborhood’s architectural and historical character? Does your tract have CC&Rs (Covenants, Codes & Restrictions)? If they have fallen out of use, maybe you could revive them.

Working with the city to create enforceable design guidelines is another strategy. This could be done by creating a historic district or an ‘Eichler overlay’ district.

How tough would you like these rules to be? Voluntary suggestions?

Mandatory rules? A little of both? And who would enforce them? A neighborhood committee? Or a city or county planning department or historical

n i t u o t ge ue? o t e m Ti f the iss front o

GO FOR IT. Right: At Pomeroy Green in Santa Clara, Ken Kratz with wife Diane Harrison look forward to the National Register: “It’s a good program,” he says. “Eichlers are important.” Above: Pomeroy Green, early 1960s. door to their complex.

Kratz says a group of Pomeroy residents has been both fighting the proposed housing and working to secure Register approval. He has been working closely with state preservation officials and expects to have the nomination complete soon.

Kratz says the Pomeroy Eichler Neighborhood Preservation Society didn’t decide to seek National Register status to head off the proposed development. The timing was coincidental.

Pomeroy Green is likely to be the third Eichler neighborhood to be placed on the National Register—more than a decade after Palo Alto’s Greenmeadow and Green Gables were named in 2005.

Determining a strategy Is it time for your neighborhood to seek protection from monster homes, two-story additions, or remodels that no longer look like Eichlers?

26 C A M O D E R N

resources commission?

Daniel Hillmer advises checking with city planning staff to see what rules exist. Look into your city’s general plan and the process for updating it.

It’s important to get many neighborhood people involved so others will buy into the idea. Work to dispel fears, for example, that homeowners will be required to undo past changes, such as replacing doors that don’t fit Eichler style, or that rules will prevent them from making interior changes.

It is not retroactive “You have to repeat, early and often, ‘It is not retroactive.’ And you have to repeat that again. ‘It is not retroactive,’” Ettinger says. “Whatever condition your house is now, it can stay that way. ‘It is not retroactive.’”

If people complain that designation or zoning changes would reduce property values, speak to people in

other Eichler neighborhoods that actually have such rules or designations in place—and, incidentally, also have some of the highest home values in the state.

In Orange, a long planning process, led by the architectural firm Page & Turnbull, pulled many neighbors into community meetings and workshops.

Tracy Ettinger says that strategy proved successful in determining what kinds of regulations would be acceptable to the community.

“Getting the city’s attention is important, because [the process is] expensive,” Ettinger says. “If the city

hadn’t hired Page & Turnbull, the grassroots [homeowner support] would have had to pay for it.”

Pomeroy Green’s Ken Kratz says Eichler owners really should consider the National Register. “I’d advise them to get together with their neighbors, review the state [of California’s Office of Historic Preservation] requirements, and go for it,” Kratz says. “I think it’s worthwhile. It’s a good program.

Eichlers are important.” ■ Photography: David Toerge, Sabrina Huang, Jonathan Braun; and courtesy Fan and Tracy Zhang

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■ON THE HOMEFRONT

EICHLER X-100 in Newest photos unveil historic San Mateo home as labor of love guided by preservation Now that its restoration is complete, the Eichler X-100, the unique steel-framed mid-century modern home built by Joe Eichler in 1956 in the San Mateo Highlands, is finally in full, glorious bloom.

Recent photographs of the newly furnished and landscaped X-100 (several featured here) show just how special the home really is.

“Looking at the new photos, I’m so happy with the results,” says Marty Arbunich, director of the Eichler Network and owner of Eichler’s experimental demonstration house designed by architects Jones & Emmons, of a fresh batch of X-100 photographs taken by staff photographer Sabrina Huang. “I think everything turned out beautifully.”

Actually, Huang is one of many expert professionals recruited by Arbunich to help restore and showcase the X-100: interior designer Lucile Glessner Design (as project manager, aesthetic consultant, and furnishings procurement), landscape architect JC Miller of Vallier Design Associates (landscape and hardscape, with assist from New Forest Landscape Design), general contractor Smollen the Builder (building of fences and gates), stager Camila Baum of Modernism for the Masses (furniture sourcing assist), Palladino Painting, and several others.

“Both Lucile Glessner and JC Miller deserve a lot of credit for bringing together the big-picture plan,” Arbunich says, “and, despite several challenges along the way, guiding all the details of the restoration through to completion.”

Huang’s photographs support that point. Arbunich first noticed her photography years ago, while she was shooting for Eichler Homes Realty in the South Bay. Mid-century modern design in particular, says Huang, “does make my heart beat faster.”

She says Arbunich, like many architectural clients, had a very specific vision he sought for the X-100 photos.

Although Huang sometimes will use shadows for effect, “He likes a more even lighting look.”

28 C A M O D E R N

PICTURE THIS. This two-page spread of photos shows the Eichler X-100 following its recent restoration.

Right center: In a mood of celebration, X-100 owner Marty Arbunich with photographer Sabrina Huang.

Dealing with glass walls and 32 feet of overhead skylights, she says, made for “a little different way of looking at a photo shoot.”

Now that the X-100 is officially on the National Register of Historic Places (since 2016), its restoration, landscaping, and refurnishing complete, and the home is now documented with photographs showing the home in its glory, Arbunich enters the final phase of what will eventually become a 20-year stewardship for him.

The X-100 is currently under long-term lease, and will be showcased for occasional tours. “I like the idea of opening the X-100’s doors to organized groups—architects, designers, mid-century modern fans,” Arbunich says. “It’s a special place that ought to be shared.”

But the last leg of his final phase is “actually going to be a sad one for me,” Arbunich admits, given that he expects it to conclude with the eventual sale of the X-100 during the next few years.

–Dan Smith Photography: Sabrina Huang Photography

X-100 IN ITS GLORY. Working with 32 feet of skylight and so many glass walls made for “a little different way of looking at a photo shoot,” recalls photographer Sabrina Huang of her full-day project at the X-100.

C A M O D E R N 29

On the Homefront Fear knocks Eichler neighbors debate how to react when sketchy solicitors appear at the door There was a time when our leader

told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. But what about in today’s climate of cable TV news hysteria?

Might be easier these days to count what not to fear. Immigrants.

Superbugs. Cybercrime. The threats are myriad and varied.

Now add to that a simple knock on the door or ring of the doorbell.

“Hi Neighbors!” cheerily begins a recent post on the NextDoor website by San Mateo Highlands resident Emily E. “Anyone else have a man knock on their door today, asking for money for a magazine or book subscriptions? When I said I couldn’t, he was not nice.”

Seven neighbors in this community of 650 Eichlers quickly signed onto the string with similarly stern summaries of the same salesman, whom Oliver F. said, “was acting strange, loud, and obnoxious as I backed in my driveway. I pretended I was deaf.”

On the other end of the spectrum from Mr. F.’s approach is that of Jorg A., who went to the same forum to warn Highlands residents of a subsequent solicitor.

“It turned out to be a short, fat, and somewhat strange-looking character with a phony story about coming from one of our neighbors that looked like me!” Mr. A. posted.

With that message, an even longer chat room string was ignited, with two-dozen neighbors debating both the level of threat…and the resident’s reaction.

“He was collecting money, so I asked for some kind of ID, which he reluctantly produced and, becoming [sic] very disturbed when I grabbed it out of his hand, and I said I would just make a copy and return it to him!” Mr. A. related, posting the

30 C A M O D E R N

man’s name, height, weight, and birthdate. “I locked the door, which he kept banging on while I made a copy. When I returned it, he said it was illegal to copy it and that he would report me to the police.”

“Jorg, you sir are guilty of taking property from another person by force or fear—a violation of 211 PC, a felony,” opined Craig L. “You better

hope that the Sheriff does not show up, because your statement and this post would be evidence of your actions, if the person wishes prosecution. You are out of control.”

Once Mr. A responded in defense of his approach, Jay B. continued the chat room dogpile: “Regardless of your intention, you committed a criminal act against another. The really bizarre part is you let everyone know about it on NextDoor.”

Perhaps, but he certainly had his defenders on the string, with other Highland residents appreciating his proactive approach to crime fighting.

“Jorg was correct to be suspicious. There are too many crooks wandering about taking advantage of our sympathy and generosity,” clucked Albert K. “It is scary…but probably for both of you,” reasoned Carol M. “We’re all living in such fear…We have so much wealth…and so little personal security!”

For the last word on home security, we turn to the local Sheriff and Police.

Turns out the Highlands is more protected from unscrupulous solicitors than some neighborhoods, say San Mateo law enforcement spokeswomen, who offer several strategies for security-conscious residents.

“We don’t recommend opening the door at all for anybody,” Detective Rosemary Blankswade,

spokeswoman for the San Mateo County Sheriff, told us when we contacted them for this report. She was, of course, speaking primarily of “anybody you don’t recognize,” and the detective said the Office of the Sheriff “absolutely” does not recommend Jorg A.’s technique.

“The community’s safety is the most important thing. People should

especially important for kids who might be home alone…Teach your children the tactics of what to do if anybody comes to the door or if they’re looking through windows.”

Blankswade also recommends the use of front-door peepholes and camera security. “There’s a lot of great technology out there, like the Ring app,” she said.

“We appreciate good descriptions of the person and the direction they headed. If they can get a look, that’s helpful to us,” she said.

Undoubtedly one source of fear about shady solicitors is crime by forced entry.

KNOCK KNOCK. “Anyone else have a man knock on their door today, asking for money…” went the first post, as the San Mateo Highlands NextDoor forum lit up. Above: Today’s Highlands: 650 doors in all. not feel bad about calling in,” she said assuredly. Her counterpart with San Mateo Police was equally emphatic.

“Any time that anybody is ever in any doubt or feels uncomfortable [with solicitors], they can always call 911,” said San Mateo Police Sgt. Amanda Von Glahn in a voicemail interview. “Your safety is most important, and not appearing rude to a stranger…is not as important for people to consider.”

If approached in front of your home or on the street, said Blankswade, “If it’s something you don’t want, just say no and end the conversation right there, walk away—that’s it.”

“People should go with their intuition,” she advised. “If they don’t want to have a conversation, then don’t.”

“You can make people believe that there are more people in the house by announcing, ‘I’ll get it,’ if nobody’s home,” advises San Mateo Police Sgt. Amanda Van Glahn of solicitors at the door. “This is

“It’s pretty rare. In my 12 years of law enforcement, I haven’t had too many circumstances of that happening [in San Mateo],” said Blankswade.

“They’re not often, but they do happen,” added Van Glahn, commenting, “San Mateo, in the grand scheme of things, is a sleepy town.”

And if one is looking for more assurance, consider Blankswade’s past experience patrolling the Highlands, or ‘40 Beat,’ as the Sheriffs call the unincorporated part of the Highlands.

“That was a call we got often,” she said regarding magazine salesmen.

“The Eichler Highlands community is very good about notifying us.”

Lastly, when a solicitor is met at the door, said Blankswade, “Any legitimate ones are going to have that [official verification] up front in their binder”—whether it’s a sales permit or non-profit credentials.

–Dan Smith Photography: Sabrina Huang, David Toerge

SJ

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nBLAST FROM TH E PAST

UNSUNG MASTERS OF THE MID-CENTURY MODERN ARCHITECTS OF CALIFORNIA

By Dan Smith

Every now and then—especially during Giants-Dodgers baseball brawls or bitterly fought elections—California can appear to some to be a house divided.

Indeed, every few years somebody advances a ballot initiative to split this great state, usually separating North from South. Culturally and historically too, the two regions have made distinctly separate contributions to various fields, like those of the respective Claremontand Sausalito-based potters whom we profiled here in the past.

MARIO CORBETT

GEORGE ROCKRISE

Though his father was a Beaux Arts-style architect, Corbett was a dedicated modernist who practiced in San Mateo for more than 30 years. Halfway through that period he designed two striking houses on Sausalito’s Wolfback Ridge in 1947 and ‘48, including one for himself, and eventually moved his offices to Marin as well. Corbett specialized in single-family homes in communities all around San Francisco Bay. His creations of angular, wooden Lutheran churches in San Francisco and Daly City are among his most memorable designs.

The son of a Japanese architect and his English wife, Rockrise’s luminous body of work is marked by the influence of his heritage and a dedication to landscape. Manhattan-born and professionally based in New York his first six years, he moved to San Francisco in 1947 to work with master landscape architects Thomas Church and Lawrence Halperin on the Dewey Donnell Garden in Sonoma and other projects.

The firm he founded, ROMA Design Group, has created dozens of award-winning projects on several continents.

JAMES DELONG

EDGARDO CONTINI

THORNTON ABELL

The Southern California native designed more than 100 beautiful homes in the region over a multi-faceted career that started with a bang. After a stint as a draftsman and fellow at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesan West school in Arizona, DeLong moved back to L.A. and started his practice in 1947 with two Usonian homes atop Mt. Washington that are now L.A. Historic-Cultural Monuments.

For another half century, he continued to design homes— also remodels, restorations, and additions—and spent ten years doubling as architecture editor for House Beautiful magazine.

Contini, one of the Crestwood Hills creators with A. Quincy Jones in the 1940s, was one of several designers who had come to L.A. a decade earlier to escape European fascism. Member of a prominent Jewish-Italian family, Contini was educated at University of Rome. He joined the staff at UCLA, but also lectured at the USC School of Architecture.

Co-founder of Gruen Associates in 1951, he was known to some as the conscience of all L.A. planning professionals in the mid-century, presiding over significant projects, including the Pacific Design Center and Fox Hills Mall.

The gorgeous steel, glass, and wood homes created by this Michigan native regularly fetch seven or eight figures on the market today, so it’s not like he’s wholly unappreciated. The unusual arc of Abell’s career, however, limited his output and reputation to a mere 22 homes, including Case Study House No. 7 (1948) in San Gabriel.

He spent seven years at three universities on his bachelor’s degree, then another 17 drafting and designing for other architects before finally venturing out on his own at age 37.

32 C A M O D E R N

When it comes to mid-century modern architecture, certainly Joe Eichler found the market and landscape of NorCal more receptive and lucrative than that to the south. Alternatively, the wave of Bauhaus-bred modernists who came here from Europe tended to settle and work in L.A., which is also the site of most of Arts and Architecture magazine’s famous Case Study Houses.

When we examine lesser-known California architects, they too fall easily into one camp or the other, north or south. These aren’t the Richard Neutras or Julia Morgans here, but nonetheless they are noteworthy talents whom

the spotlight of history and celebrity seem to have sadly skirted.

This installment of ‘Unsung Masters’ differs from others in at least one respect: Underappreciated work was also done by architectural partnerships. Certainly that was true of Eichler architects Anshen and Allen, and so it follows for three of our profiled candidates here. One of these three included marriage, a union that did not last.

Hoping the Golden State duality fares better, here are our ten unsung designers of California modern architecture.

FRED & LOIS LANGHORST

CAMPBELL & WONG

Lois Langhorst was like women in the film ‘Hidden Figures,’ except as an architect. Rejected for employment by William Wurster, she embarked on a career in which her contributions were consistently overlooked, and overshadowed by those of men, despite her innovations that included the first kitchen island.

Fred apprenticed for Frank Lloyd Wright and drafted for Wurster before the husband-andwife partnership, but his career lagged after their divorce in 1955.

Denied tenure by Wurster at UC Berkeley, Lois went on to teach at universities in Kentucky and North Carolina.

A partnership with John Campbell (pictured right) in this San Francisco-based firm was one of several phases in the career of Worley Wong (left). Receiving attention for one of its first projects, the Fallen Leaf Lake House (1947) in Fallen Leaf, Campbell & Wong continued to work all over Northern California throughout the 1950s and ‘60s.

Highlights include the Hotel Leger (1960) in Mokelumne Hill and the Minimal Apartments and Bartlett-Campbell Apartments (1961), both in Sausalito. The firm also designed the unbuilt Case Study House No. 27 (1963).

WARREN CALLISTER This Rochester, New York native may be the best known of our neglected masters, but many would contend he deserves more. He was recognized as a leader of the woodsy Second Bay Tradition and helped spread that ethos back east when Callister, Payne & Rosse expanded from Tiburon to an office in Amherst, Massachusetts in the 1960s. He achieved probably his greatest acclaim that decade, designing the California State Fair and several amazing Bay Area chapels, in a career that spanned 70 years.

LADD & KELSEY

GORDON DRAKE

Even more than talented designers emigrating from Europe, the incubator of SoCal modern was the University of Southern California. Significantly, its School of Architecture produced both halves of this Pasadena-based, Streamline Moderne-influenced firm. Though not as well known as other USC colleagues, Thornton Ladd (pictured left) and John Kelsey (right) produced some of the highest profile modern structures of the mid-century, including the Pasadena Art Museum (1969) and the First Methodist Church (1961) in LaVerne, famously used in the final scene of the movie classic ‘The Graduate.’

More than any of our masterful yet unsung architects, Drake had a foot in both halves of the Golden State. A student and protegé of Harwell Harris at USC, he was showered with awards and acclaim for several amazing L.A. homes in the mid-’40s, then moved to the Bay Area in 1948.

Tragically, he died four years later at age 34, choking to death in a Sierra skiing accident and truncating a career that could have been among the greatest of all California architects.

Photography: courtesy Thornton M. Abell papers - Art, Design & Architecture Museum / University of California, Santa Barbara (Architecture and Design Collection); Environmental Design Archives - University of California, Berkeley (collections of Warren Callister, Gordon Drake and George Rockrise); Jennifer Kelsey; Kitty Okamura; Lothian Furey; Rico Tee Archives Special thanks to Adriene Biondo and Alan Hess for research assistance

C A M O D E R N 33

DEAR

CHERRY . . . America’s Queen of Modernism, Manners and Mirth!

Dear Cherry: I am new to hosting.

How do you suggest I start?

–Newbie Socialite Dear Newbie: I think the nicest way to ease yourself into hosting is with a lovely after-dinner coffee and dessert reception. This is also an especially ideal kind of gathering if you are limited in entertaining space or live in a small home or apartment.

Unless you have a fancy, expensive espresso machine you wish to show off, invest in a good old-fashioned silver coffee percolator dispenser. It takes up little counter space and allows you to produce enough coffee for a nice-sized gathering with minimum effort. (And please make sure you have some instant decaf coffee or herbal tea on hand for those who are caffeine sensitive.)

The great thing about desserts is that because sugar is a natural preservative, you can make your treats well in advance of the day of the party, and they will still be fresh and delicious when served. This also means less last-minute prep time on the day of your event.

I always like to suggest having at least two options available for dessert.

It seems to be human nature for many people to look beyond the meal in anticipation of that sweet-treat finale.

But, keep in mind, what are sweets for some may be sour for others. So when it comes to dessert, make sure everyone’s palette has something to savor.

There are chocoholics who will be disappointed if you don’t have something chocolatey in the mix. And then there are those who are allergic to chocolate who will be disappointed if that is the only sweet you are serving.

Think of the flavors you might offer in terms of variety groups—and then select one item from two or more different groups.

Try not to overlap in your offerings.

In other words, don’t have two berrybased desserts in the same spread.

Some suggestions: • Dark: chocolate, coffee • Light: vanilla, caramel, coconut • Fruit: apple, peach, pear, cherry • Berry: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry • Citrus: lemon, lime, orange A nice mixed spread might include a chocolate walnut brownie, key lime pie, and a coconut caramel flan. One

34 C A M O D E R N

Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Billy Vaughn, Ferrante & Teicher, the quintessential 101 Strings, and of course, my main go-to man, Mancini!

Also, I highly recommend the early Afro-Latin grooves of Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, and Cal Tjader.

For more-obscure vintage sounds, look for music from unusual places.

and go-go girls from France. The Italian film factory, Cinecittà, put out a couple of volumes with sounds straight out of a Fellini film. Or track down the work of film composer Gert Wilden for his scores of naughty German films, including ‘Schulmädchen Report.’

Then jump ahead and consider modern tracks that have that vintage sound, but with a twist. I love the band called Nutty, with their magical musicianship and musical mash-ups. See them play live if you can.

Now, while I cannot condone the scandalous lyrics found on his records, you still might like hearing outrageous rap sung by lounge-lizard style-master Richard Cheese.

Or go back in time again with the Nutley Brass covering the Ramones. Or how about 1950s pop singer Pat Boone’s 1997 resurrection, ‘In a Metal Mood.’

Dear Cherry: Do you ever hit your forehead and wish you could’ve had a V8?!

Hahaha! –Knucklehead in Cupertino

of those treats is sure to appeal to everyone in your mix.

At the end of your gathering, if you have any treats left—remember, they are sugar-based and won’t spoil immediately—you may continue to enjoy the sweets of your labor…for another day.

Dear Cherry: I am looking to expand my collection of vintage music. Sinatra’s still tops, but Ol’ Blue Eyes could use a break. –East Bay Melody Aficionado Dear East Bay: I remember the moment when I first discovered Juan Garcia Esquivel. Zu-Zu! Pow! I suggest you uncover the secret world of ‘beautiful music’ and orchestra bandleaders like Esquivel. They took off where Lawrence Welk left off.

If you’re lucky, you can still find their unwanted albums in dusty thrift store bins and garage sales. But to you they could be solid gold: Bert Kaempfert, Jackie Gleason, Les Baxter, Nelson Riddle, Hugo Montenegro, Mantovanni,

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC. Middle: Cherry blushes as an Ol’ Blue Eyes impersonator gives her a smooch.

Top: How can a host go wrong with a yummy platter of chocolate chip cookies. Above: Scrap the V8, this is the real thing: Cherry’s own veggie concoction.

Think movie scores and soundtracks from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, eras filled with hidden gems.

There are funky beats from Japan,

Dear Knucklehead: No. I prefer to make my own vegetable juice to canned concoctions! But thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about the lost art of tomato juice.

Betty Crocker, in 1950, discovered the joys of adding a little salt, lemon, Worcestershire sauce, and onion juice to tomato juice. It is especially delicious when you add a pretty celery stick and a wedge of lemon as a garnish.

Betty also preempted the official ‘Clamato’ brand’s story by offering a recipe for tomato-clam juice (without the fancy name). However, she suggested that it be served hot, like a bouillon drink. In addition, Betty also suggested mixing tomato juice with sauerkraut juice, a combination that is surprisingly delectable.

Truly, with tomato juice as a base, you can’t go wrong mixing it with many different savory flavors: garlic, cayenne, cucumber, and more.

Before it became a trademarked sugary-sweet canned drink in the mid-1960s, Clamato was supposedly inspired by a bartender named Walter Chell in Calgary, Canada who was in turn inspired by the Italian dish spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams).

Today, the Clamato Caesar (with vodka added) is Canada’s unofficial cocktail!

• For more Cherry, visit CherryCapri.com Photography: Taso Papadakis, Cherry Capri

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