Redwood City Eichlers: 121 Buildings, Ten Butterfly Roofs and the Only Eichler Duplexes
Palo Alto has roughly 2,700 Eichlers. Redwood City has 121 Eichler buildings in all: 115 houses in three tracts and six duplex buildings on one street. Every one of them went up between 1950 and 1956.
It is a small market with an outsized place in the story. Atherwood, at the Atherton line, was Joe Eichler's first subdivision in San Mateo County and won Architectural Forum's Subdivision of the Year honors within weeks of opening. It holds about ten butterfly roofs, the largest set Eichler ever built. And every Eichler in the city predates the atrium, which changes how these houses should be bought, renovated and priced.
We know them from the inside. We bought a 1950 Atherwood house at 1156 Parkwood Way, rebuilt it and sold it in 2024, and we listed 1186 Lyons Street in Fairwood in 2025. This edition of our City Eichler Guide series has its own home online: EichlerRedwoodCity.com.
Five Years, a Gap, Then the Duplexes
Eichler opened his first modern subdivisions in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale in 1949. Redwood City came next. Atherwood opened in November 1950: Anshen & Allen's AA-1 plan on four streets off Route 84, with about ten of the 64 homes under butterfly roofs. Ladies' Home Journal featured the tract that month. In December, Architectural Forum named it one of four Subdivisions of the Year. The other three were Eichler tracts in Palo Alto.
Two smaller tracts followed. Fairwood, 28 homes on Lyons Street, went up in 1953 and is recorded by the county as "Fairwood Sub." Sequoia Meadow, 23 homes on Northumberland Avenue and Cypress Street, followed in 1954 and was the last Eichler subdivision in the city.
Then, in 1956, Eichler came back to try something he never tried again: six duplex buildings, twelve units, on Roble Avenue, built to lease rather than sell. A San Mateo Times advertisement offered a two-bedroom, one-bath unit at $146 a month, with Joe's brother Al handling the leasing. A year or two later, the atrium arrived as a marketed Eichler feature. By then the last Redwood City keys had been handed over.
This is early work by Eichler's first two firms, Anshen & Allen and Jones & Emmons. Claude Oakland never designed here; he opened his practice in 1960.
Before the Atrium
Buyers who learned Eichlers in Palo Alto arrive in Atherwood looking for the atrium and don't find one. The houses predate it. Eichler's first courtyard-like plan, Plan 37, was built in Atherton's Lindenwood in August 1951, and the atrium did not become a marketed feature until 1957 or 1958.
What the early houses did instead was simpler. One glass wall, the full height of the room, facing a private garden. Post-and-beam framing so that wall could be glass at all. Redwood inside. Heating tube cast into the concrete slab, so there are no registers, no ducts and no attic. The garden is not enclosed by the house; it sits on the other side of the glass.
It matters when you sell, because a buyer shopping Palo Alto will ask, and "it predates the atrium, and here is what it has instead" is a better answer than "no." It matters when you renovate: carving a courtyard into an early plan rarely pays.
The Butterfly Roofs
A gable sheds water outward from a high ridge. A butterfly does the reverse: two roof planes start high at the outer walls and fall inward to a valley in the middle of the house. The taller outer walls let glass run all the way up at both ends, bringing clerestory light deep into the plan.
The shape reads as desert modernism because of William Krisel's Twin Palms in Palm Springs, 1957. Atherwood's went up in 1950. About ten survive, and there is no practical way to add one. From the curb, follow the fascia: if the roof edge rises at both ends and dips in the middle, you have found one.
Get the Full Property Nerds® Field Guide
The blog gives you the story, but the full guide goes deeper.
Download the complete Redwood City Eichler Guide for the butterfly roof section drawing, a tract-by-tract comparison table, fact files for Atherwood, Fairwood, Sequoia Meadow and the Roble Avenue duplexes, the full photo story of our 1156 Parkwood Way renovation, the buyer's and owner's checklist, and the seven verified Redwood City Eichler sales since 2018.
Get the Full Guide →Tract by Tract
All four groups sit in the 94061 zip code. Tract boundaries should be confirmed against county records rather than listing-portal labels, which are often wrong.
- Atherwood, 1950. 64 homes on Atherwood Avenue, Parkwood Way, Cedarwood Way and Oakfield Avenue, at the Atherton border off Route 84. Homes ran about 1,140 to 1,790 square feet as built, on lots of roughly 6,000 to 7,300 square feet. Recorded map: San Mateo County RSM 31/39.
- Fairwood, 1953. 28 homes on Lyons Street, about 1,300 square feet, three bedrooms and two baths, under low gable roofs. The detail Atherwood lacks is a glazed gable over the garage, carrying clerestory glass into the peak so the ceiling plane reads from the street.
- Sequoia Meadow, 1954. 23 homes on Northumberland Avenue and Cypress Street, recorded as "Sequoia Mdw." The predominant model is 1,110 square feet with three bedrooms, with some larger plans near 1,400, on lots of about 6,000 square feet.
- Roble Avenue duplexes, 1956. Six buildings, twelve units of about 945 square feet, two bedrooms and one bath each, in Redwood Oaks on the Atherton side. Two mirrored units share a low gable and a central carport, and each has floor-to-ceiling glass, a fireplace and a private rear patio. The parcels are zoned R-2, assessor book-page 059-151. As far as the record shows, these are the only duplexes Eichler built anywhere.
There is no historic overlay or design review on any of them.
Our Own Project: 1156 Parkwood Way
We bought a 1950 Anshen & Allen house on a 6,030-square-foot lot, took it apart and put it back. The post-and-beam structure and the plan stayed. Nearly everything else was renewed: dual-pane glazing, electrical and plumbing, a foam roof and skylights, insulation, kitchen and primary suite. It sold on September 17, 2024 for $2,300,000, three bedrooms and two baths on 1,530 square feet.
The decision we still discuss is the heat. We stopped using the slab and installed four-zone forced air, which adds cooling and removes the biggest unknown from the next inspection. On that house, at that budget, with that slab, we would do it again. On a house whose original radiant system still runs cleanly, we would not.
What the Numbers Say
On September 11, 2026, none of the 115 houses was on the open market. The last few sales are the whole dataset:
- 1135 Cedarwood Way, Atherwood, 1,448 square feet: listed at $2,149,000, sold for $2,605,000 on March 27, 2026, 21 percent over asking in 29 days. A new high for the city's Eichlers.
- 1186 Lyons Street, Fairwood, 1,800 square feet: listed at $1,699,999, sold for $2,300,888 on November 19, 2025, 35 percent over asking in 27 days. It was rebuilt in 2000, so the price reads more like new construction on a Lyons Street lot.
- 1156 Parkwood Way, Atherwood: $2,300,000, September 2024.
- 389 Northumberland Avenue, Sequoia Meadow, 1,140 square feet on 6,011: $2,050,000 on May 2, 2024, about $1,800 per square foot.
That is a working range of roughly $2.0 million to $2.6 million across the four sales since May 2024. For contrast, 185 Atherwood Avenue sold for $1,230,000 in 2019. And the line does not only go up: 1135 Cedarwood sold for $821,500 in 2005 and $710,000 in 2010.
The Property Nerd Questions
- Is it an Eichler? Look for exposed beams, a low-slope roof with no attic, tongue-and-groove decking as the ceiling, glass to the beam line and heat in the slab. A 1950s tract house with a truss roof and a crawl space is a ranch, whatever the listing says.
- Has the radiant slab been pressure-tested and thermally scanned? Everything else in the budget depends on the answer.
- Is the roof foam or membrane, and on a butterfly, has the valley and its outlet been inspected specifically?
- Is the glazing original single-pane, and do any replacements match the original sightlines?
- Have the 75-year-old electrical and plumbing been replaced, and are there permits?
- Will the plan stay pre-atrium? Additions that hold the roofline and clerestory band sell; second stories on a single-story street do not.
- On Roble Avenue, have you checked what R-2 zoning allows before planning an ADU or a lot split?
Explore EichlerRedwoodCity.com
The guide is the deep read. EichlerRedwoodCity.com is the place to keep up with it: Atherwood, Fairwood, Sequoia Meadow and the Roble Avenue duplexes, the butterfly roofs, and the Redwood City Eichlers as they come to market. Bookmark it if you are waiting for the right house on Parkwood or Lyons.
The Series
Redwood City joins the other City Eichler Guides: Los Altos, Burlingame, Cupertino, East Bay, San Francisco, Foster City, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose and Santa Clara.
The Boyenga Team at Compass
Eric and Janelle Boyenga lead Silicon Valley's #1 Eichler team. We have sold Eichlers on the Peninsula since 1996, and we have represented both ends of the Eichler story: Joseph Eichler's first home in Atherton and the X-100 in the San Mateo Highlands. With more than 2,256 homes sold, $2.3 billion in volume and 28+ years in Silicon Valley, we bring data, design knowledge and a network of Eichler buyers to every sale.
In Redwood City we sold our own Atherwood renovation at 1156 Parkwood Way for $2,300,000 and represented 1186 Lyons Street, which sold for $2,300,888. When we price a house on Parkwood, Cedarwood, Atherwood or Oakfield, we reason from the county record and from a project we paid for ourselves, and we bring a list of design buyers through Compass Private Exclusives before a home goes public.
Download the Redwood City Eichler Guide PDF
Redwood City Eichlers do not come up often. When they do, they deserve to be understood.
Whether you are thinking about buying, selling, renovating, preserving, or simply learning more about Eichler's earliest Peninsula houses, the full Redwood City Eichler Guide is designed to help you see the market like a Property Nerd®.
Download the Redwood City Eichler Guide PDFThinking of buying or selling an Eichler in Redwood City?
Talk with Eric & Janelle Boyenga, Silicon Valley's #1 Eichler team.
Contact the Boyenga TeamEichlers@Boyenga.com · 650.383.8606 · 408.373.1660
EichlerRedwoodCity.com · Boyenga Team | Compass · DRE 01254725 / 01254724
Price ranges and sales are drawn from public sources and our own records, 2025–26, and are not appraisals. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Compass is a licensed real estate broker in California. Equal Housing Opportunity.