Vintage Photo: Sacramento Eichler Homes Sales Office

From the not fully processed Chamber of Commerce Collection, Center for Sacramento History

(Reproduced here with permission from and all rights retained by the Center for Sacramento History)

Here's a nice undated vintage photo from the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce Collection at the Center for Sacramento History. My best guess is that the photo was taken in 1955 or 1956. It features two homes on South Land Park Drive that still exist today -- one of which was an original Eichler Homes Sales Office in Sacramento.

The homes pictured above as they currently appear on the left and right can be seen in my Flickr set of Sacramento Eichler Homes, also featured in a previous blog post.

The demonstration home shown in the above black and white photo was for sale in 2009.

If you have any Eichler Homes ephemera from Sacramento or beyond, I'd love to hear from you. I'll be featuring more rare ephemera soon. Special thanks to the Center for Sacramento History for this gem!

Sacramento's Blomberg Homes in CA Modern Magazine

The Eichler Network featured a story on Blomberg homes in their Winter 2012 issue of CA Modern magazine written by Dave Weinstein. A heartfelt thanks to them for covering this important piece of Sacramento mid-20th century modern history!

Check out the article on their website: "Built to Blast: Friendly fallout of the Cold War, Blomberg’s ‘bomb-resistant’ concrete homes represent a colorful chapter of mid-century modern Sacramento"

Over the years I have gathered vintage ads and information about Blomberg Builders - a mid 20th century Sacramento builder and building materials supplier. Gustaf C. Blomberg was a builder and developer in Sacramento -- after pioneering the development of concrete masonry construction. He worked for the Basalt Rock Co. in Napa in the mid-1930s and helped develop Basalite, a lightweight concrete block. These blocks (still available today) were used a great deal in construction during the 1950s through the 1970s. Marketed advantages of using Basalite blocks included durability, sound control, low cost, low maintenance, relative light weight, ease of installation, and uniform size and density.

Some of my research for SacMod was shared with CA Modern Magazine for the above article. If you want to see more Blomberg Homes ephemera and photos from SacMod's research library, see my Flickr set. A photo slide show of this set is shown above.

The Blomberg family still owns and operates Blomberg Window Systems. Jerry Blomberg ventured on his own and developed another company: Sunoptics.

Cheers to the Blomberg family -- their industrious and innovative spirit has helped shape our neighborhood and city!

Here comes the Sun(flower Farmers Market)

5.6.12 Update: Grand Opening = May 16, 2012 at 7am. There will be giveaways, tastings, specials, etc. Hurray!
5.1.12 Update: Word in the neighborhood is that opening day is coming mid-May.
4.6.12 Update: Sunflower Farmers Market has recently merged with Sprout Farmers Market. This will slow but not halt progress at the Sutterville Shopping Center.

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Great news for our neighborhood this month! As reported in the Sacramento Bee, we'll likely be welcoming a Sunflower Farmers Market in the Sutterville Shopping Center (located at the corners of Del Rio Boulevard and South Land Park Drive). This seems like a great time to share with you what I've gathered on the history of the center, which was originally built in 1955.

Original rendering of the Sutterville Shopping Center, 1955

The Sutterville Shopping Center was designed by Los Angeles architects Karel Kooper & Curtis C. Maybeck. Built with a steel and wood frame, the center was decorated with native stone and brick. The original occupants of the center were:
- a Cardinal super market;
- Land Park Pharmacy, owned by Joseph Russ and Ted Econome;
- a coffee shop owned by William Thompson;
- an interior decorating and furnishings store owned by Richard McClernon;
- a women's clothing store owned by Mrs. Andrew Bartolini and Mrs. Vera Wacholder;
- a variety and toy shop owned by Doris Gossling;
- Swift Cleaners dry cleaning shop;
- a barber shop owned by Louis Caldwell, and;
- a beauty shop owned by Charles Crowley.

As noted in a Sacramento Press article earlier this year, "The building near South Land Park Drive and Sutterville Road has always been anchored by a grocery store since its construction in the early 1950s – from Cardinal and Lucky Stores to Compton's Market and Wilco. But the 21,000-square-foot, ground-floor space has been empty since a Prime Market left about two and a half years ago."

Cardinal comes to Sutterville - from my microfilm research, Sacramento Bee

According to this month's Bee article, Sunflower Farmers Market signed a 30 year lease at the Sutterville Shopping Center and "tenant improvements will begin immediately with major upgrades at the 30,000-square-foot store site...." Of course, I hope any exterior changes are consistent and sensitive with the shopping center's original mid-century modern architecture. For example, Parkside Pharmacy's remodel blends nicely with the center's original style, right down to the dimensional letters on top of the center's soffit.

Let's give a big welcome to Sunflower Farmers Market -- looking forward to having their wonderful store in our neighborhood!

Sacramento Eichler Homes Neighborhood in CA Modern!

Woohoo! Special thanks to Dave Weinstein and the Eichler Network for featuring our neighborhood in the latest issue of CA Modern!

Check it out - there are some great pix and quotes from folks in the neighborhood, including four wonderful households that recently participated in the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour  this last June.

It's been a little over two years since I started this blog -- after we purchased Dr. H's wonderful home. I looked around and found very little about our neighborhood, Eichler Homes in Sacramento, or about mid-century modern architecture in our region. In my attempt to fill this void by researching our recent past, I've learned many interesting and exciting things.

If anyone out there has additional information that they'd like me to share here about the neighborhood or other goodies of note, drop me a line at the email address noted in the upper left hand corner.

Cheers!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

Ever feel like this?

I have to say, that home tour wore me out a bit. Been getting lots of inquiries about Sacramento Modern (SacMod), our new non-profit dedicated to promoting, preserving, and protecting modern art, architecture and design in the Sacramento region. We're also quite busy preparing to meet with some state preservationists this coming week. Despite the fatigue, still thinking up new ways to entertain and educate people around here. This is the best non-paying job EVER!

And now, back to more *stuff*:

Original letter to new Eichler Home owners in Sacramento

Say hello to a letter personally signed by Joseph Eichler to the Michaels family when they purchased their Sacramento Eichler Home. You may recall they also shared a huge brochure with us recently.

I think my favorite part is the page with the signature - because on the back of it Mrs. Michaels scribbled some notes to herself about babysitters and replacement glass. As a mom I can appreciate this.

See the other pages in that Flickr set for the rest of the letter, which speaks to the level of pride and concern Joseph Eichler had in his product. The letter accompanied other materials and manuals that helped Eichler Home owners care for their investment. These items came in a vinyl trifold case -- see another example here, from a previous post.

Happy weekend everyone!

There's something afoot at the South Hills Shopping Center

I posted a while back regarding the old Neptune's Table spot in the South Hills Shopping Center. Recently, neighbors have noticed some activity at this spot.

The result? A new paint job that matches the rest of the center and a missing vintage dining sign. I'm missing the sign, of course.

In other shopping center news, the lease for the 95822 USPS is reportedly due to expire this fall. Neighbors have put in their .02 on the matter and want the post office to stay. If you wish to voice your concerns you may write letters to Congresswoman Doris Matsui, Councilman Rob Fong and speak to post office management on your next visit.

By the way, the original center was designed by William Koblik in 1960.

Once there is an official stance available regarding the outcome of either of these buildings I will post. Stay tuned!

Blast from the past -- 1955 Sutterville Shopping Center, South Land Park Terrace

I have always wondered about our neighborhood shopping center -- what it might have looked like over 50 years ago. And today I found this article from the Sacramento Bee dated April 23, 1955 with an artist's conceptual drawing. According to the article, "ten businesses, including a Cardinal super market, will occupy the mart. There will be an interior decorating firm, a dry cleaning establishment, beauty shop, and dentist office."

This shopping center -- originally designed by Karel Kooper & Curtis C. Maybeck of Los Angeles according to my research -- is one of our beloved neighborhood stops that has retained some of its mid-century appeal. I'd like to see more tenants continue to spruce up the center without turning it into a faceless stucco facade strip mall. For example, I still enjoy the fun-spirited remodel of La Bou -- a long time cornerstone of the center. Macau Cafe also joined the center a couple of years ago and remodeled their space nicely.

Recently, I have been impressed with Curtis Popp's interior remodel of Parkside Pharmacy (formerly Land Park Pharmacy). My favorite part of Parkside's redo: the cool dimensional letters on top of the building's soffit!

The largest part of the center is a gigantic grocery store, now vacant. This spot has been a Welco and, more recently, a Prime Supermarket since I have lived in the neighborhood. Trader Joe's was mulling it over, but apparently they may no longer be interested.

I would love to see a local market move in -- Corti's and Taylor's immediately come to mind. Any other innovative ideas for this now empty space?

Original Sacramento Eichler Home Building Permits

I was at The Center for Sacramento History yesterday trying to see what goodies I could find regarding our neighborhood. I wasn't sure exactly what they might have that would be relevant but did discover they had a cache of (mostly) original Eichler Home building permits (see more information at the bottom of this post).

 Holiday card available from The Center for Sacramento History

Putting up holiday decorations at 13th & K Sacramento 1956

The Center also had some interesting items that would make great holiday presents -- historic Sacramento maps, calendars, cards, and more -- all available at their store and at their Zazzle site. For example, they have a card of the 1956 13th & K scene above. They also sell local history books published on various Sacramento neighborhoods and subjects.

I also found a cool 45 rpm record called "The Sound of Young Sacramento" that they handed out for free at a previous event, now available for free ($5 mailing charge) from their store. This is a compilation of four tunes from Sacramento garage bands, "recorded in 1966 at the Franklin Boulevard Studios of the legendary Bill Rase." A larger compilation that can be found here. Groovy!

 

Sample permit I picked up for all South Land Park Hills Eichler Home neighbors 

Getting back to the building permits.... e-mail me if you want a copy of yours. For privacy reasons, I'm reluctant to post per usual on Flickr. No charge, I do this as a hobby.

I tried to identify all Eichler Homes in the neighborhood and will gladly send you a copy if one was to be found at the Center. I know of six existing Eichler Homes for which I could not find a permit. My email address can be found in the blog description on the upper left corner above. I also found some voided permits which demonstrate Eichler Homes intended to build an additional 16 homes all the way down South Land Park Drive to 13th Street.

Happy holidays from our house to yours!

Cool Sacramento MCM: Mahoroba Bakery

I've been watching a little Googie building being rehabilitated at 4900 Freeport Boulevard and am happy to report it has been transformed into a wonderful Japanese bakery! Open from 7:30AM to 7PM, according to a handwritten sign in their window. Of course I had to geek out for a moment on the mid-century aspects of the building, -- a small octagonal cutie with pinched pleat zig-zag roofing! It was originally a MacFarlane's Candies built in the mid-1960's.


Being the sophisticated foodies we are, my six year old and I skipped past the creamy and bean paste items and headed straight for the CHOCOLATE! Mahoroba serves "authentic Japanese baked goods, featuring our acclaimed freshly made 'Kobe cream delight'." They have both sweet and savory pastries, various breads, coffee drinks and bottled juices.

I got the "An pan man choco" and my son got the "Chocolate Hat." Both were absolutely delicious. Mine was still slightly warm. The pastry bread on the "An pan man choco" was soft and fresh and the chocolate filling was tasty. "The Chocolate Hat" was refrigerated and had crunchy chocolate on top. The pastry was crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. Both were sweet but not cloyingly so.

We will be adding this to our once a week repertoire of fun places to go in the morning before school. I would love it if they offered fresh fruit salad but I realize this is a bakery and most bakeries do not offer this. We'll be back, definitely. My son would like to eat like this every day, of course!

For more reviews and food pictures, visit Mahoroba's review page on Yelp. For additional information regarding the business, this is an interesting article.

UPDATE 8.9.09: Additional pictures by the Sacramento Bee in this photo gallery here. According to the Bee: " Business owner Narusuke Monguchi chose Freeport Blvd., in Sacramento as his first USA location for his Japanese bakery Mahoroba"

Sacramento Eichler Homes Gallery

According to my count, a total of approximately 54 remaining Eichler homes exist in Sacramento today. These homes were built between 1954 and 1956 on three streets in the South Land Park Hills area: South Land Park Drive, Fordham Way, and Oakridge Way.

Several neighbors have discussed an interest in enrolling the Eichlers on the National Register of Historic Places. This has been done in Palo Alto's Green Gables and Greenmeadow neighborhoods. If you are a South Land Park Hills neighbor who is interested or has an opinion about this, please leave a comment at the end of this post.

The South Land Park Hills neighborhood is also home to many wonderful MCM homes.


Ironically, there is an Eichler Street in the neighborhood but there are no Eichler homes on it.

The photos in this set were taken in early and late Spring of 2009.

This set is my attempt to document the homes as they are today, over 50 years after they were built. If anyone knows of a Sacramento Eichler home I've omitted, please contact me and I will include it in the group. I've removed or fragmented addresses and license plates for privacy.

UPDATE 7.9.09: Special thanks to pinetree from Flickr for his keen eye in recognizing another Eichler in the neighborhood that I did not (it now looks like a conventional home). More pictures of this particular Eichler here in pinetree's Flickr eichler homes | land park photo set.

MCM architecture in Sacramento's South Land Park area

Vic's IGA - formerly Jumbo Market - designed by Sooky Lee

I recently wrote a very short article for the South Land Park Neighborhood Association's newsletter regarding mid-century modern architecture in South Land Park. I hadn't really given much thought about it before I was given this assignment, but after writing the article I realize that this is essentially what I love about our neighborhood -- how much of its original nature is still intact.

In our neighborhood, you just have to walk out your front door to find mid‐century modern (MCM) buildings and homes. MCM architecture (also referred to as "Post‐War Modern") is a style that rose from the post WWII suburban housing boom. Characteristics of MCM architecture include: clean and simple lines; walls of glass; open floor plans that incorporate outdoor space; emphasis on the horizontal plane, and; flat or wide‐angled roofs. Several MCM styles are prevalent in South Land Park.

MCM ranch homes are well‐represented in our neighborhood. Features of these homes often include: stunning grand double front doors with ornamental door knobs; large plate glass windows; extra wide eaves; and use of materials such as flagstone, brick, stucco and wood. Occasionally you will spot a large split‐level (think "Brady Bunch") MCM home. Custom homes designed by notable local architects such as Carter Sparks, Grant Caywood, and Dean Unger are sprinkled throughout the neighborhood.

Look no further than South Hills Plaza for examples of Googie architecture, characterized by bold geometric, parabolic and curvy lines. The roof at Vic's IGA (formerly Jumbo Market) with a zig‐zag outline and skylights that allow natural light to pour into the store and the US Post Office’s wavy arches are great examples.

Further south from the Plaza you will see a small group of Eichler Homes built in the mid‐1950s. Joseph Eichler developed neighborhoods in California with practical and affordable mass‐produced homes designed by respected architects. Eichler Homes were cutting edge in terms of their design and inclusion of unique features such as radiant heating and post‐and‐beam construction. The style of these homes was emulated across the U.S. Similar MCM homes built by Streng Bros., a Sacramento building firm, can also be found here.

The entire issue of the neighborhood association's newsletter is available in pdf format ("April.pdf") here.

Vintage Aerial Photo of the South Land Park Hills Tract!

Via Dane Henas, a wonderful aerial view of our neighborhood from 1955! See if you can spot your house :)

Larger version for download here (5.2 file "EichlerAerial300dpi.jpg")

Many thanks to Dane and Jim Saggs for sharing this.

Marsh-a, marsh-a, marsh-a

Taking a stroll with our dog around the neighborhood, I happened to run into a group of new friends and neighbors, fresh from their trip to the annual San Mateo Highlands Tour. Noting the nearby sump station, I asked if there was a creek nearby and was directed to the Reichmuth Park Nature Area, just across the street.

As I walked into the canopy by Sump Station 65 on Silver Lake Drive off of South Land Park Drive, my trepidation turned to delight as I discovered a wild wetland forest right in the middle of our urban neighborhood! I can't help but wonder if Joseph Eichler intentionally chose to build our neighborhood near this natural asset or if it was just a coincidence.

There is a beautiful trail which meanders and eventually leads to the grassy areas of Reichmuth Park. Along the way, we spotted wild blackberries, grapevines, cat tails, and even a fig tree nestled among the native oaks. We heard crickets, frogs and saw a shallow pool full of tadpoles. Even though we didn't see any, there are reportedly bunnies. And birds. Lots of birds. Apparently, per the Sacramento Audobon Society Reichmuth Park is home to many uncommon birds. The next scheduled SAS field trip is scheduled this fall, September 21, 2009 at 7:30am.

Near the bottom far left margin of this old 1908 Sacramento map, you will see an area called Munger Lake, where Reichmuth Park is currently located. According to Carlos Alcala, author of "Sacramento Street Whys: The Whys Guy’s Wise Guide to Sacramento Street Names" Reichmuth Park was "... named for Joseph and Amelia Reichmuth. At one time they owned the park, only it was under water and named Munger Lake, which explains why kids practicing soccer in winter tend to get very muddy there. The Reichmuths also had a 358-acre dairy...."

If you want to melt away the stress of urban living, I suggest a walk with your dog here. For safety reasons, I suggest you don't go alone.

My kids really loved the "secret" nature walk. Except for the wet shoe in the boggy water incident, but the shoe was washed and no harm done. This morning, my six year old son stated that he's pretty sure Master Yoda lives there but only comes out at night when it's foggy. Only the birds and the bunnies may know for sure.



UPDATE: Quite a while after I did this carefree little post, Valcom News reporter Lance Armstrong did a great in-depth article on the history of Reichmuth Park and the lake. Read his article here.

Won't you be my neighbor? Part One

I recently took a walk with our dog around the South Land Park Hills neighborhood (aka "South Hills") and wanted to share these pictures with you, which can be seen in detail in this Flickr set.

In addition to a small number of Eichlers, our neighborhood is filled with 1950's - 1960's custom modern ranches nestled among giant native oaks and built on gently curved streets. Features include: stunning grand double front doors with large ornamental escutcheons; linear textures; large plate glass windows; extra wide soffits; and use of natural materials such as sedimentary rock. Design elements are mostly geometric, including repetitive patterns of brick and negative space. Many homes in the area have Asian-influenced designs.