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The swimming pool is a rare sight in San Francisco, where climate errs on the chilly side. But head east over the Bay Bridge and you’ll find neighborhoods riddled with these watering holes, including some in the backyards of highly sought-after—and pricey—midcentury Eichler homes.
Here’s a closer look at three pool-enhanced Eichlers that also come with courtyard atriums, a signature of the iconic developer, giving you the best of the great outdoors without having to leave home.
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253 Wiget Lane, Walnut Creek
$1.7 million
Located in Walnut Creek’s Northgate neighborhood, this circa-1969 Eichler, designed by Claude Oakland, comes with four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms. Considered a massive Eichler compared to its smaller cousins typically found in Palo Alto and San Rafael, this home measures 2,435 square feet. It’s also noted for its large open-air atrium fronted by a dramatic double-door entry.
Highlights here include a period-perfect Malm fireplace in the loggia, a living room with wood-burning brick fireplace, polished concrete floors, and of course, a pool. But this isn’t any pool; it’s a salt water pool, which produces softer-feeling water. Comfy.
The listing is through Thomas Westfall of Compass
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8010 Shay Drive, Oakland
$1.55 million
This Oakland home, designed by famed architects A. Quincy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons, features four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The 2,421-square-foot Eicher is a double A-frame, noted for its two high-pitched roofs that form an atrium starting in the courtyard entrance and running to the back of the living room.
The circa-1965 house retains all of the period details that make Eichlers still so alluring—soaring ceilings, massive windows, globe lighting, and an open-floor plan—but a renovation has updated the kitchen and bathrooms.
The pool still bears its original, oh-so midcentury-modern kidney shape.
The listing is through Cheryl Berger of Compass.
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5787 Highwood Road, Castro Valley
$1.35 million
Measuring roughly 2,000 square feet, this Castro Valley home, built in 1962, comes with five bedrooms and two bathrooms. This double A-frame specimen, also designed by Emmons and Jones, features new tile flooring, a motorized retractable roof for the central atrium, skylights, a gas-heated pool, and—uncover your eyes, midcentury purists—an unpainted brick wood-burning fireplace.
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