populuxe

It has always been a dream of mine to move to California and buy an Eichler home. Let me say it is good to dream. Eichler homes certainly are dreamy, but the price tag is not. Eichlers can fetch up to $800,000, even in todays market. Yowza!

I recently came in contact with Kathy Hall. She inherited a 1968 atrium style ranch home in the community of Broadmoor in Tustin, CA.

Kathy was kind enough to answer a few questions for my Retro Info blog

Tell us more about Broadmoor

Eichlers are pretty popular now, and command between $5-800,000 from what I've heard, but our tract sells for much less. The last house in here was listed for $360ish and sold for $380ish with more than one offer even in this down market.

We're between 35 minutes from downtown L.A. with zero traffic, to maybe an hour and 15 minutes in worst-case traffic scenario.

We've got a small but growing corps of people here in Broadmoor who are passionate about reinvigorating the community. It's a friendly place, we look out for each other and and the regular police protection is top notch. Tustin is a great city with a wonderful Old Town district a little less than a mile away. My sons are both in their twenties and just dearly love this city. There are bike trails all over and you can get to the beach easily. There is a lot to do right close by and of course, the climate is divine.

more after the jump

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Were your family the original owners of the house?

My parents divorced when I was very small and my mother raised me by herself. We were living in a small four room rental cottage in Eagle Rock near Pasadena. She worked in the personnel department of Max Factor in Hollywood and by the late 1960s had saved up enough for a down payment on a home of her own. At that time, not all builders would lend to a single woman, but Broadmoor's builder, Richard B. Smith of Newport Beach followed the progressive lead of Joseph Eichler and offered financing to anyone who could qualify, regardless of race or marital status.

What brought your family to Broadmoor?

An article announcing the opening of the models and the first phase of Broadmoor was featured on the front page of the Los Angeles Times real estate section in May, 1968. My mother saw the story and drove out to Orange County to look at the houses. She felt like it was the perfect house, and made a deposit on the "Custom" 3 Bedroom model which had a dining room. She watched it being built and during the summer of 1969 we moved in.

Was your mom a fan of modern design?

I don't know if my mother knew much about architecture, but she loved the features of the home, especially the atrium. She loved the indoor/outdoor connected living spaces. She was originally from the Midwest, and to her, the house embodied the classic California patio lifestyle. Also, Broadmoor homes were designed for maximum privacy -- there were no windows which face the street and the houses were designed so that no one looks directly into anyone else's home.

How long did she live in Broadmoor?

My mother lived here nearly 40 years -- from the summer of 1969 until she died in the spring of 2006. She never stopped loving her Broadmoor home, it remained her dream house for nearly four decades.

Do you have any particular fond memories of life in Tustin?

I attended Tustin High School and several kids in my class got jobs at Disneyland as soon as we turned 18. I was hired to work as a cashier at the Plaza Pavillion, a caffeteria style restaurant at the end of Main Street. Later I became a Tour Guide. In 1975 I was named the park's goodwill ambassador to the world and spent a year literally traveling the world with the Disney characters. When the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited the U.S. that year, I had the privilege of escorting them through the park during their historic visit.

When you inherited the home, what condition was it in?

The house was very well kept and in completely original condition. My mother loved the house exactly as it came from the builder and therefore never made any modifications to the structure. The kitchen was original, the Formica counters were still like new and the 1968 model Hotpoint Hallmark range was in pristine condition. She kept all the original paint colors (earth tones and white walls) and the floors were immaculate.

Did you know exactly what you were going to do with the house?

The first thing I did was to get in touch with modern architecture author Alan Hess ("Forgotten Modern"). I told him how original the house was and he came over to take a look. He said the house was an excellent example of good architecture for average people and urged us to keep the house in the family and work for the preservation of the neighborhood.

Did it require a lot of research?

I was so lucky that my mother had saved all her sales brochures and tract maps from the builder. We also found homebuyer promotional magazines from the mid sixties when much of Orange County was developed.

What did you keep original?

We decided to leave the structure original as rendered by the builder. We didn't tear out any walls or change the exterior in any significant way. We also stayed with the original earth tone colors.
We kept nearly all the furniture, which is from the decades of the 40s through the early 70s. We're going to keep the kitchen exactly as it is. The luan cabinets are in mint condition and the avocado stove is much too cool to replace. We're keeping the white Formica counters, too.

What did you change?

The floors were in great shape, but at the time the house was built, it was fashionable to use a different floor covering in each room. We decided open up the spaces by removing the carpeting and putting down blonde plank flooring throughout the entire house. We did the job ourselves with materials from the home improvement store. We also reworked the entrance to the house a bit. My mother kept a lot of large shrubs in the entryway. We removed those and had interlocking pavers installed by a home improvement store, and I added a low bench I built myself. Now the front entry is a useable courtyard where we can sit and watch the sun go down behind a grove of palm trees across the street - the quintessential California day's end experience!

What is your favorite part of the house?

The atrium seems like the soul of the house, and the thing that people notice right away. When the weather is warm (which is most of the year) we sit in the atrium in the morning in our pajamas and drink coffee and read the paper. At twilight, the cantina lights come on automatically and the space is lit with a soft glow.

Tell us more specifics about the house.
How many bedrooms, baths, sq. footage, etc?

Our house is 1500 square feet and has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Most people who visit are startled to hear the actual square footage, because they say it seems like a much larger house than what it is. These homes were built before the advent of space gobbling amenities such as jetted tubs and walk in closets, so even a modest sized house seems more expansive with a simple floor plan. Our model has a family room, a breakfast nook and a dining room. Broadmoor has four models -- the Decorator, Custom, Exclusive and Elegante which range in size from 1300 square feet up to the two story 1800 square foot model. In today's market (January, 2009) the homes sell for between about $300,000 to $400,000 - a screaming bargain for Orange County real estate. There are 127 homes in the tract and there are no homes for sale or rent at the present time.

Tell us more about the atrium, plants and landscaping.

My mother kept a cottage style garden in the front yard, with lilacs, frilly flowering plants and shrubs. However, the house was built with Mediterranean accents such as heavy wood beams and wrought iron light fixtures. We decided to rework the landscaping with Mediterranean climate plants such as phormiums, an olive tree, dietes, nandina and mock orange. Everything is watered with drip irrigation and takes very little maintenance.

The atrium is furnished with a vintage Brown Jordan patio set and my mother's cactus collection. When I was a little girl, we drove out to the renowned cactus gardens of Harry Johnston in the town of Paramount. My mother bought a flat of assorted tiny cactus starts and kept them growing the rest of her life. Today, several of those plants stand taller than my husband. I even found the Johnson Cactus catalogue from 1963 among her things.

The dominant features of the back yard are the 40 year old navel orange and Meyer lemon trees which she planted shortly after we moved in. Every winter these sag under the weight of gargantuan fruit. Most of the back yard is a large concrete patio and we reworked the perimeter flowerbeds using the inherited assorted succulents and tropical plants.
My mother's favorite potted plant -- an umbrella tree -- now stands in the planter next to the front door with uplighting for some nighttime drama.

I see an Asian/Tiki/Surfer influence in your decorating style.
How did this come about?

We named the house "Endless Summer" after the 1964 surf odyssey movie of the same name. The surfboard belongs to my older son who is a Navy officer on an aircraft carrier. It was a gift to him for graduation from Annapolis. He asked us to store it for him in the garage, but I thought it was much too pretty to be hidden away.

What is the bamboo covering on the walls?

The bamboo covering the walls are just blinds from the home improvement store! I originally wanted to do grasscloth, but realized that was going to be very expensive and difficult to install. One day I grabbed a bamboo blind from the home improvement store, pulled off the hardware and strings and hung it on the wall as a backdrop for a vintage kimono I wanted to put up. It seemed to work and I ended up using that as a theme for the rest of the house.

We wanted to use the furnishings we inherited, but they originated from several decades -- the 40s through the 70s. I called a local decorator who offered a two hour consultation on reworking decor using existing furnishings. A lot of the ideas in the house were hers, she had some great thoughts on ways to tie things together using texture. We decided that a casual retro tropical theme would be easier to pull off than pure modern period decor.

What kind of flooring do you have?

The flooring is a premium Pergo plank product called Elegant Expressions in Ashton Oak. We got the materials at Home Depot. It's impervious to scratches and very easy to keep clean. We did the entire installation ourselves one room at a time, keeping the planks going the same direction through the entire house. It goes down very quickly and it helps to have access to a table saw as well as a miter saw.

Have you always been a fan of mid century modern architecture or did you begin to appreciate it after you inherited the home?

I've always liked modern architecture, ever since I was little. My favorite show is MadMen.
It never occurred to me to sell the house. Our young adult sons love the home and the neighborhood, which is only 9 miles from the Newport Beach Pier. Tustin has a great Old Town district which is only a few blocks away. We're also close to public transportation and within walking distance of basic stores.

Do you know who was the architect of builder of the home?

The architect of the house is Robert G. Jones, Associates, of Thousand Oaks, CA.
The builder is Richard B. Smith of Newport Beach. He built about ten tracts of mostly luxury homes in Orange County and I believe Long Beach, but I'm not positive on that last location.

Have you completed the restoration of the home or is there anything else you have planned?

The house is mostly finished, but I imagine the new books I just ordered from Populuxe will inspire a few new projects!

Thank you Kathy for introducing us to Broadmoor. If we do make it out to Cali, we will definitely give Broadmoor a looksy. Be sure to check out the upcoming issues of Atomic Ranch. Kathy's home will be featured in the magazine. For more info about Broadmoor, please visit BroadmoorTustin on MySpace.

all photos courtesy of Kathy Hall