This page will now include the text of articles I've written for the Eichler Network newsletter. I am not an architect or designer, and don't pretend to be. I am an Architectural Groupie, more specifically... I am an "Eichler-Holic". What are Eichlers? Read on!!!

ARTICLE ONE: Wally Fields, Eichler-holic

I prowl the streets at night - the streets of Palo Alto, San Rafael, even San Francisco and Sunnyvale. My breath hangs in the air as I creep along the empty suburban sidewalks, stalking another one directly in my path.

Am I a thief? A kidnapper? No. More insidious than that...I am an Eichlerholic!

I have a strange obsession with these wonderful homes, and have since I was a kid. I feel a tremendous surge of excitement, a burst of creative energy, whenever I'm near them.

When approached from the street at night, the Eichlers don't give up their secrets easily, of course. Open-beam ceilings-seen through triangular windows near the roof, the light of the TV reflecting from the living room way in the back. A seductive glimpse of center courtyard seen through the open door. The confusion of indoor and outdoor spaces.

Sites like these lead me to wonder where my own creativity comes from. Probably from my family - a bunch of oddballs, of which I am the oddest. But I suspect that this creativity also owes itself in no small part to living in and amongst these architectural wonders.

I was born and raised in Palo Alto, spending the first years of my life in an Eichler on Thomas Drive - a flat-top with a center courtyard. My family moved out and into a "regular home" when I was three, reinforcing through my own deprivation the magic of what I call "Eichler vibes." I don't think these homes would have seemed quite so mysterious to me if I had lived in one all my life. That's one theory. Regardless, my fascination continues to burn.

After our move, my family continued to own the Thomas Drive house, periodically returning to clean it between tenants. And I always went along with my parents on those occasions, a chance to rekindle old memories that threatened to fade away. I remember how appropriate the house looked empty. Indeed, emptiness becomes Eichlers.

But I could still remember, sort of, what it was like to live in that house. Black Tiki masks in the atrium, my late mom scrubbing the floor and swearing: "That damn kid made a mess again!" And all the while, the strange, beautiful lighting that illuminated the middle of the house and beamed through all those skylights. And-philodendrons. Lots of philodendrons.

I recall the early '60s as a bastion of tacky culture. I distinctly remember walking past the old Emerson console TV-radio - at the time it reached up near my shoulders - which played silly girl-group music like "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." The absurdities of television, with its Boraxo and Shake-and-Bake ads, the TV announcers blaring in their authoritative voices. Men in their stiff suits and ties, women in their goofy hoop skirts, and kids in wide-striped T-shirts. And lots and lots of Formica. How could such brilliantly designed homes have popped up in the midst of all this mediocrity?

I continued to live in Palo Alto, going to Cubberley High School for two years, until 1977. Then my family moved to Idaho, where I lived for seven years before returning to the Bay Area, to Fremont. During all that time in Idaho, and later in Fremont, something seemed to be lacking in my life, like a missing limb. There were no Eichlers to be found anywhere!

So every so often, I make time to prowl. Especially through Palo Alto. I call it "Eichler hunting." Often, when I find a favorite, I'll stand there, staring in awe, thinking, 'One day, I'll own one myself!' (Yeah, right! If I can ever afford it!) Then I imagine the furniture I'll have, what plants I'll put in the atrium. When the security light flashes on, my stargazing is cut short, and I realize once again I'm a stranger of the night in someone else's neighborhood.

I start thinking, 'How odd. I'm obviously trying to connect with my past.' Yet, for the longest time after my departure, I never really tried to contact the people I had known in this town. For all I knew, all of them had either passed or moved away. Once, I realized the craziness of my behavior, and knocked on the door of some friends of the family I hadn't seen in 20 years, all too long of an absence. Not only did I get to relive fond memories with some old friends, but I got myself another opportunity for one more great Eichler fix.

But why do I have such an obsession with these homes? Is it just nostalgia - or is there something else going on here? Meanwhile, my family members don't share my obsession. They seem to quickly get bored with my musings about Eichlers, remembering them mostly as being small and uncomfortable. (After all, we were a family of seven, and needed a lot of space!)

That's why I decided to get in touch with the Eichler Network. Now, as the "Eichlerholic" columnist, I have an excuse to stay on the prowl. I'm going to check out neighborhood after neighborhood. I'll visit homes at random - maybe even yours - hoping for a walk-through and looking for another story to tell. I won't be reporting about your solutions for poor window insulation and old siding, or wonder what you're going to do about those roots in the sewer. I'll leave that to the Network service pros.

Instead, I'll be looking for another fix - and for what feelings we might have in common. Well, do we share that same passion? Is the Eichler experience something special and mystical for you too? Will I ever live in an Eichler again?

I really need to know.