Tract 1 of 32 · 1949–1954 · the early tracts
University Gardens
The first one. Sixty-three houses built before Eichler hired an architect.
The first — before the architects.
- Recorded
- 1949–1950
- Architect
- Joseph Eichler w/ draftsman Castor
- Homes
- 63
- Era
- Early
- Streets
- Josina Avenue
- City record
- City of Palo Alto Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines
University Gardens is where the whole thing starts. In 1949 Joseph Eichler was a butter-and-egg man who had spent the war years renting a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Hillsborough and decided the rest of the country deserved something like it. He had no architect yet — the drawings came from a draftsman named Castor — and the houses show it. They are modest, direct, and closer to conventional postwar construction than anything he built afterward.
That makes the tract more interesting, not less. You can read the ideas arriving: the plan already turns its back on the street, the roof is already low, the rear already wants to be glass. What is missing is the confidence that Anshen & Allen brought a year later. Buyers who want the origin story buy here. Buyers who want the fully-formed Eichler buy three tracts later. The recorded lots run along Josina Avenue.
What was built here
Early-fifties plans: post-and-beam frame left visible, radiant heat in the slab, a near-blank wall to the street and the rear given over to glass. Compact by modern standards — most have been added to. No atrium; that idea is still years away.
What moves the number in University Gardens
- Pre-architect detailing — simpler trim, shallower overhangs, and roof framing that reads heavier than the 1950s tracts.
- Original radiant slabs are now roughly seventy-five years old. Ask what has been done, and whether the system still runs.
- Several have been remodeled well past recognition. The intact ones are genuinely scarce and the market knows it.
What is it worth?
We price University Gardens the way it was built.
By tract, by architect, by what is still intact. Tell us the address and we will come back with the range and the reasoning behind it — not an automated estimate.
Before they hit the market
Most University Gardens homes we sell never reach a portal.
Owners in these tracts tend to know each other. When one decides to move, we usually hear first. Join the list and you will hear early too — no volume, no drip campaign.
Eichlers@Boyenga.comEichlerHomesForSale.comBoyengaTeam.com Eric Boyenga DRE #01254724 · Janelle Boyenga DRE #01254725