A. Quincy Jones · Frederick Emmons · 1951–1969
The Los Angeles firm Eichler called in.
Eichler rang Quincy Jones in 1951. About five thousand Eichler houses followed, a steel-framed experiment in San Mateo, and a house for Willie Mays in Atherton that was never built.
To Jones & Emmons designs
To the partnership
San Mateo Highlands, 1956
The partners
Kansas City and upstate New York.
A. Quincy Jones was born in Kansas City in 1913, took his architecture degree at the University of Washington in 1936 and had his own practice from 1945. He taught at USC from 1950 to 1978 and was dean of its architecture school from 1975. He died in Los Angeles in 1979.
Frederick Emmons was born in Orleans, New York, in 1907, graduated from Cornell in 1929, and worked for McKim, Mead & White and then for William Wurster before the war. He opened his Los Angeles practice in 1946, retired in 1972 and died in Belvedere in 1999.
The partnership ran from 1951 to 1969. (One source starts it in 1950.)
Eichler
About five thousand houses.
Eichler contacted Jones early in 1951, after Jones won a Builder’s House of the Year award in December 1950. About five thousand houses were built to Jones & Emmons designs. The firm’s 1957 book, Builders’ Homes for Better Living, is dedicated to Eichler, “a truly progressive builder.”
The X-100
A house on a steel frame.
The X-100 at 1586 Lexington Avenue in the San Mateo Highlands was designed in 1955 and opened in October 1956: an exposed steel frame, 2,310 square feet and no load-bearing interior walls, engineered by William R. Mason, with a garden by Douglas Baylis. It adapted the steel house Jones had built for his own family in 1954. Up to 150,000 people toured it. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. It is a private residence.
- Designed
- 1955
- Opened
- October 1956
- Size
- 2,310 sq ft
- Frame
- Exposed steel
- Landscape
- Douglas Baylis
- National Register
- 2016
Sources: SAH Archipedia; Eichler Network, “The Eichler X-100.”
Atherton
The house for Willie Mays.
In September 1959 Jones & Emmons took over the design of a custom house Eichler planned for Willie Mays at Middlefield Road and Encina Avenue. It would have passed 3,500 square feet with its garage. It was never built, and the drawings are in Jones’s papers at UCLA. The full story is on the register.
Beyond Eichler
Sunnylands, and a firm award.
In 1969 the American Institute of Architects gave Jones & Emmons its Architecture Firm Award. Jones’s buildings include Sunnylands at Rancho Mirage (1966), the USC Faculty Center (1960) and UCLA’s University Research Library (1971). His papers, including the Eichler drawings, are at UCLA Library Special Collections. We could not locate an archive of Emmons’s own.
Questions we get asked
The ones that come up.
- Did Jones & Emmons design any Eichlers in Atherton?
- They designed one — the Willie Mays house of 1959 — but it was never built. The documented Atherton Eichlers are by Anshen & Allen.
- Can I visit the X-100?
- No. It is a private residence. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
What we can do for you
Things worth asking us for.
Help us finish the record
If you hold something from 1951 to 1960, we would like to see it.
The 1953 Lindenwood brochure, a plan leaflet, a construction photograph, a letter from Eichler Homes — the documentary record for Atherton is thin, and a scan of what is in your drawer makes it better for every owner in town. We will credit you, or not, exactly as you prefer.
Talk to us
Atherton, specifically.
If you own a Jones & Emmons Eichler anywhere on the Peninsula, the model and the architect are worth establishing before you sell. We can help you find both.
Where to go next
Read these three.
The rest of the story