The 2,310 square foot steel X-100, called in the Eichler Homes brochure an "Exciting Exploration into Future Living," was designed by A. Quincy Jones, who wanted to continue his experimentation with steel homes. Joe Eichler and his son Ned saw it as a perfect opportunity to get all the businesses that were clamoring for Eichler Homes to use their products to put some of their pre-production prototypes on display.
The Wall Street Journal said, "The thousands of Californians who crowded into this 'home of tomorrow' this week gaped at such innovations as a revolving fireplace, one entire wall of glass, a plastic skylight like a bomber bubble, two indoor gardens, electrically operated sliding doors that replace all windows, and steel-frame construction to eliminate the need for load bearing walls." Local newspapers, as well as nationally distributed magazines like Sunset, Living for Young Homemakers and Arts & Architecture, ran articles about the X-100, which is said to have drawn over 150,000 visitors to the 700-house Highlands development.
The home also boasted such features as a MusiCall intercom radio, Waste-King's "super-hush pulverator" (garbage disposal), an automatic dishwasher and a NuTone five-in-one unit built directly into the countertop for blending, sharpening knives or making juice, as well as rooftop spotlights that eliminated the need for lamps, reversible kitchen cabinet doors (yellow on one side and white on the other) for instant decor changes and an 8'x4' Formica table in the kitchen that slid apart to reveal two burners used to keep food warm during meals.
Though the Eichlers wanted the structure primarily as a promotional tool, it turned out, somewhat as a happy accident, to be an experiment into the technological future of homebuilding.
From eichlernetwork.com and midcenturia.com
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| X-100 kitchen, with pull-apart table revealing a two burner range eamesdesign.com |
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| Interior color scheme of gray with cinnamon beams eichlernetwork.com |
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| X-100 exterior with pool midcenturia.com |
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| Rotating fireplace and interior gardens midcenturia.com |
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| Sales brochure (from Sunset magazine, 1956) about.com |
Let's play an "I Spy" game and see what kind of thread we can get going with the new Blogger feature. I'll start the thread in the comment section below, and we'll see how many of the props we can recognize in the pictures above. The Eichlers got companies to furnish the X-100. How many can we identify?
