Eichler home in Orange sells for record $1.85M
A twin gable, midcentury modern home in Orange, constructed by postwar developer Joseph Eichler in 1964, has sold for $1.85 million.
The price is nearly 10% above its initial $1.685 million asking price in March and exceeds the $1.801 million sale of a Fairhaven Eichler in December, setting a Southern California record for its kind.
At just shy of 2,000 square feet of living space, this fivebedroom, two-bathroom home in the Fairhills neighborhood was renovated and restored to its original glory by its last owner, a graphic designer who bought the house in 2001 for $364,000.
“The house is next level,” said listing agent Kelly Laule of Better Living SoCal, an Eichler specialist also involved in what is now the second-most expensive Eichler home sale in Southern California. “You almost never see a house as pristine as this one and I’ve been working with these houses now for 20 years.”
It comes with a Mills Act contract, which offers significant property tax savings in exchange for maintaining the historic home.
An orange door in the carport area opens into the atrium, surrounded by the U-shaped home’s glass walls and sliders.
Inside, the vaulted living room boasts a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace and glass walls onto the backyard pool and raised deck. A wood wall separates the dining room from the family room, which opens to the eat-in kitchen.
The seller reproduced the original kitchen cabinets in redwood to mirror the home’s original design.
Other fixes included redoing the floors, replacing damaged portions of the Philippine mahogany walls and finding and restoring period-era light fixtures and door hardware.
The five front-glass panels in the carport also were replaced.
Eichler built about 11,000 single-family homes in California, beginning in the late 1940s, with the idea of creating affordable houses for the masses. More than 340 homes are in the three Orange tracts of Fairhaven, Fairmeadow and Fairhills.
Of the three neighborhoods, Fairhills is the only one whose powerlines are buried. The underground utility cables preserve the clean, simple lines of the Claude Oakland and Jones & Emmons-designed homes without distraction.
Sandy Lin of Junda Realty represented the buyer.