Boyenga Team · Atherton Eichlers What's mine worth?Valuation

19 Irving Avenue · Lindenwood · 1951

The house Joe Eichler built for himself.

Anshen & Allen designed it in 1951 on a lot in Lindenwood. Joe and Lillian Eichler lived in it until 1965 — longer than any other house they occupied — and used it to test what went into the tracts. One family held it for the next fifty-nine years. In 2024 the Boyenga Team brought it to market for the first time since.

What is my Eichler worth?All of Atherton
19 Irving Avenue at dusk from across the swimming pool: long low roofs with white fascias over walls of glass, a tall brick chimney at the centre, rooms lit inside, and four wooden chairs around a fire pit in the foreground.
The garden front at dusk, across the pool. Photograph by David Eichler, March 2024 © Boyenga Team.
1951Built
Anshen & Allen, architects
3,700Square feet
Five bedrooms, five and a half baths
59Years with one family
From 1965 until 2024

The brief

He wanted to live the way he had in Hillsborough.

Before he built a single modern house, Joseph Eichler rented one: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bazett House in Hillsborough, from 1943 until its new owners evicted him in 1945. That house is where the whole enterprise starts, and this one is where he tried to have it back.

The first attempt stalled. Around 1949 Eichler sited his own house in Hillsborough, and postwar construction limits — which capped new houses at 1,100 square feet — stopped it. A year later the project was revived, the plan revamped, and the site moved to Lindenwood in Atherton.

Anshen & Allen’s first scheme had dropped the Bazett’s V-shaped plan. The revamped Lindenwood plan put it back.

The house

An etude in parallelograms.

The plan is a V: two wings opened toward the garden. Wright had worked the Bazett House on a hexagonal module at sixty degrees; Anshen & Allen carried the angle but changed the shape, and the parallelogram runs through the rooms and into the swimming pool. A later owner, Paul Feder, called the house “an etude in parallelograms.”

THE BAZETT HOUSEFrank Lloyd Wright · 1940hexagonal module, 60° angles120°THE Vtwo wings, opened toward the gardencarried from Hillsborough to Lindenwood60°19 IRVING AVENUEAnshen & Allen · 1951“an etude in parallelograms”A DIAGRAM OF THE PRINCIPLE — NOT A FLOOR PLAN OF EITHER HOUSE · DRAWN BY THE BOYENGA TEAM
From Wright’s hexagon to Anshen & Allen’s parallelogram. A diagram of the principle, drawn by the Boyenga Team — not a floor plan of either house.

The fabric is redwood and brick. The siding is a thick board-and-batten, inside and out, with the nail heads left visible. The rear is glass. The kitchen is a small galley, as the Bazett’s was. The heat is radiant. The cabinets and bookshelves are built in and follow the same angles as the rooms, and a swimming pool sits at the centre of a mature garden.

Address
19 Irving Avenue
Neighbourhood
Lindenwood, Atherton
Built
1951
Architects
Anshen & Allen
Size
3,700 sq ft
Bedrooms / baths
5 / 5.5
Lot
0.90 acre · 39,123 sq ft
Plan
V-shaped, parallelogram module
Structure
Post and beam, radiant heat
Cladding
Redwood board-and-batten, brick

Sources: the 2024 Compass listing; Eichler Network; The Almanac; Dwell. One Eichler Network article gives four bedrooms; the listing gives five, and the listing governs.

19 Irving Avenue by day: a long single-storey house of glass walls under low white-edged roofs, a brick chimney at its centre, a swimming pool and terrace in front and lawn in the foreground.
The whole garden front by day: two long wings of glass meeting at the brick chimney, every room opening onto the pool terrace.
The living room: a long sectional sofa under dark exposed beams and a pale board ceiling, vertical redwood panelling with high windows above, and a brick fireplace wall on the right.
The living room: dark beams under a pale board ceiling, a clerestory above redwood board-and-batten, and the brick fireplace mass.
Dining room with a long built-in wall of blond wood cabinets and open shelves set into vertical redwood panelling, a wooden table and chairs, and a full-height glass wall to the garden.
The dining end. The cabinets and open shelving are built in, set into the board-and-batten wall.
Kitchen with blond wood cabinetry, a blue tile backsplash, a hexagonal tile floor, dark exposed beams and skylights, and a built-in breakfast banquette.
The kitchen, under the same beams and skylights. It has been remodelled since the small galley of 1951.
A family room with a red hexagonal tile floor, vertical redwood panelling, a large window onto trees, a cane daybed and a white rug.
A family room: hexagonal tile underfoot, redwood on the walls, a floor-to-ceiling window to the garden.
The garden front at dusk reflected in the swimming pool, lights on inside the glass walls and the brick chimney at the centre.
The pool, which Eichler Network records as carrying the same parallelogram theme as the rooms, at dusk.
The approach to 19 Irving Avenue: a low house clad in dark vertical board-and-batten behind a clipped hedge, its flat roof running out over an open carport on brick piers, under oaks and redwoods.
The street side: a long board-and-batten wall, a deep flat roof and a carport on brick piers. Anshen & Allen’s stated policy was that the house should be blank to the front.
The side elevation from the gravel motor court: a long dark board-and-batten wall with a single framed panel on it, a clipped hedge along its base, and the carport beyond.
The same wall from the motor court. There is no front window to speak of — the glass is all at the back.
A long interior corridor with a parquet floor, vertical redwood panelling and a built-in shelf on the left, and a wall of sliding glass on the right looking onto the pool.
The gallery corridor: parquet underfoot, board-and-batten on one side, glass to the pool terrace on the other.
The living room: two long sofas on a parquet floor, dark exposed beams under a pale board ceiling, a clerestory window band above vertical redwood panelling, and a plywood partition beyond.
The living room under its clerestory. The beams are exposed and the roof decking is the ceiling.
A cane daybed on a red hexagonal tile floor in front of a full-height glass wall looking onto a lawn and trees, with a low kidney-shaped table in front.
A sitting corner on the hexagonal tile, opening to the garden through a full-height glass wall.
A lounge chair and sofa on a parquet floor against vertical redwood panelling, with a large plywood partition beyond carrying a metal bird sculpture.
Parquet, board-and-batten and a plywood partition — the fabric of the house, largely as built.
A hexagonal wooden dining table and black chairs at a built-in leather banquette, against a plywood wall with a long shelf above it, on a red hexagonal tile floor.
A built-in banquette on the hexagonal tile, with a shelf running the width of the wall.
A bedroom panelled in warm wood with a clerestory window band at ceiling height, a bed with a wooden headboard, and an open door onto a paved terrace.
A bedroom with a clerestory above the panelling and a glass door straight out to the terrace.
Built-in wooden shelving and a cabinet beside a full-height glass wall looking onto a fenced court, with a velvet armchair and a tall cactus in a concrete pot.
Built-in shelving beside the glass. The cabinets and shelves are part of the house, not furniture.

Photographs of 19 Irving Avenue © Boyenga Team: the March 2024 set by David Eichler, the street elevations and corridor from the pre-listing shoot of November 2023, and the interiors photographed after staging. 19 Irving Avenue is a private residence.

The test kitchen

“I’m a guinea pig.”

The house was not only a home. It was where the tract line was proved. A mid-1950s profile in the Palo Alto Times described it as the place where “the fate of a sliding door, built-in television and furniture, fabrics, floors — just about everything — is determined.”

“I’m a guinea pig.”

Lillian Eichler · Palo Alto Times, mid-1950s, via Eichler Network

Eichler Network describes it as a cinemascope version of the tract houses — the same ideas at a larger scale, tested by the people who had to live with them before thousands of families did.

After the Eichlers

Fifty-nine years with one family.

The Eichlers sold in 1965 to Paul Feder, and the Feder family kept the house until 2024. That continuity is the reason it survives. In a town where, by a planning commissioner’s own account, almost every midcentury house he has seen has been torn down and replaced, this one had owners who would not do it.

“It would be terribly wasteful to demolish a house that’s so beautiful. It’s sort of a crime against culture to tear down such a house.”

Judson Feder · owner, 2024, via Eichler Network

2024

Listed and sold by the Boyenga Team.

We brought 19 Irving to market on 18 March 2024 at $6,385,000, its first sale since 1965. More than a thousand people came through the pre-listing viewings. The aim from the start was a buyer who would keep the house rather than the lot, and we marketed it that way.

“This is an Eichler on steroids. It’s a spectacular house. Most Eichlers were very simplistic. Everything here is built custom.”

Eric Boyenga · to The Almanac, March 2024

If you are considering an architecturally significant house in Atherton — buying or selling — this is the transaction we would point to. It is also why we do not believe the market prices architecture here on its own. That argument is on its own page.

Questions we get asked

The ones that come up.

Can I visit 19 Irving Avenue?
No. It is a private residence. Please do not approach the house or the owners. Everything we are able to share about it is on this page.
Is the house historically designated?
We are not aware of any designation. Under Atherton’s code a house can only be placed on the town’s historical register if its owner applies — which is why so few are.
Did Frank Lloyd Wright design it?
No. Anshen & Allen designed it, in 1951. Wright designed the Bazett House in Hillsborough, which Eichler rented during the war and which this house deliberately echoes.
Why publish the list price but not the sale price?
At the owners’ request. The list price was public when the house was marketed; the rest of the transaction is between the parties.

What we can do for you

Things worth asking us for.

Protect it

Only you can put your house on the register.

Under § 8.15.210(A) of the town code, historic designation can be sought by the owner and no one else. We can walk you through what designation changes, what a historical property contract is worth, and how it affects a later sale — before you commit to anything.

Ask us about it Read the preservation page

We are not attorneys. For the application itself, the Town of Atherton’s planning department is the authority.

If you are trying to buy one

Seven are standing. They almost never sell.

An Atherton Eichler comes up once in years, and when one does the buyer who gets it is almost always the one who was already known to the seller’s agent. Tell us what you are looking for and we will tell you, honestly, whether it exists.

Get on the list See the one we sold
The record
Joseph and Lillian Eichler1951 – 1965
The Feder family1965 – 2024
Listed by the Boyenga Team18 March 2024
List price$6,385,000

Talk to us

If you own something like it.

There is almost nothing like 19 Irving in Atherton. If you own one of the handful that come close, the way it is marketed decides whether it survives the sale. We would like to talk before you decide anything.

Talk to us about yours4083731660

Where to go next

Read these three.

Every Atherton Eichler on the recordThe register, house by house The Wright house behind itWhere the plan came from Why so few are leftThe code, and the price of an acre

The rest of the story