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One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Boyenga Team<\/p>\n
With highest-level starchitect bling, the Eichler<\/a> X-100 home has come to market. The \u201cmid-century modern experimental\u201d home at 1586 Lexington Ave.<\/a> in the San Mateo Highlands is a one-of-a-kind time capsule, a love letter to the mid-century aesthetic, and almost as futuristic now as it was when it broke ground around 70 years ago. It\u2019s on the market for $4.5 million.<\/p>\n The experimental nature of this Eicher is a matter of metal \u2014 specifically steel. In a spotlight article about the X-100<\/a>, the Society of Architectural Historians\u00a0explained that the home is \u201cone of only two that developer Joseph Eichler commissioned.\u201d His architects of choice were A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons. \u201cEichler meant it as the showpiece for his suburban development, the Highlands, in San Mateo, and when it was opened to the public for three months in 1956, as many as 150,000 people came to tour the \u2018Steel House of the Future,\u2019\u201d according to the SAH.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of the Boyenga Team One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang<\/p>\n Jones had already built a steel house. His first, which broke ground in 1954, was for himself and his family. His goal with the building, in the words of the SAH, was \u201cto prove that steel could be both economical and livable.\u201d In 1955, Eichler hired Jones and Emmons to create a single-family dwelling using the same concepts, and thus, the X-100 was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The name X-100 is reminiscent of a spacecraft, which uses some of the same building materials as the home. Inside the 2,190-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom structure, Jones and Emmons used \u201cH-section columns and I-section beams,\u201d of steel, to quote the X-100\u2019s official website<\/a>. Effectively then, the inside of the structure was created with an open floor plan, with no load-bearing interior walls. And Eichler wanted to push the \u201cfuturistic\u201d nature of this design, choosing to fill the home with \u201cadvanced household appliances, some of them prototypes,\u201d according to the 1956 Grand Opening Brochure<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang<\/p>\n But there is a softness here that we might not expect from a spaceship. In opposition to the hard, impermeable steel, Jones used copious sheets of glass to create (often permeable) boundaries between the home\u2019s interior and the sun-soaked landscape of its 8,803-square-foot lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Jones placed the home\u2019s kitchen at the heart of the structure. To again use the official listing language, this decision was a careful one: \u201cRather than isolating the kitchen using walls,\u201d this design allowed the kitchen to serve \u201cas a connecting corridor between the two rear living areas.\u201d Jones chose to place the main living areas (the three bedrooms, two living rooms and kitchen) \u201caround the perimeter of the house to take advantage of the light from extensive areas of floor-to-ceiling glass, sliding and fixed (the house had no windows in the conventional sense). Even the front entrance was a sliding glass door,\u201d\u00a0the website\u2019s history page<\/a> says. \u00a0<\/p>\n One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of the Boyenga Team<\/p>\n As is common with mid-century architecture, the easy flow between the indoors and outdoors is part of the property\u2019s charm. In this case, the home hugs two sunny garden atriums. The entire back side of the home opens to the patio and pool, which in turn overlook the forested Santa Cruz Mountains. On top of it all, 32 feet of skylights flood the interior with overhead light.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5 million after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang One of only two experimental Eichler homes, 1586 Lexington Ave. in San Mateo is a rare historic property now listed for $4.5M after a meticulous, period-accurate restoration.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Sabrina Huang<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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