Boyenga Team · Burlingame Eichlers What's mine worth?

Burlingame Eichlers  /  The plans

Plan numbers

Two numbers circulate. Neither one survives checking.

Search for Burlingame Eichler plans and you will be told, with confidence, about Claude Oakland's Plan 24 and a BC-384 with a three-folded-plate entry. We went looking for the source of both. This page is what we found, which is not much, and why we print it anyway.

Why bother saying so

Because a plan number is the thing an owner uses to find drawings, price a remodel, or argue with a planner. A number that does not exist wastes real money. If we cannot source it, the useful thing is to say so rather than pass it along.

A cream-painted two-storey Eichler in Burlingame, with stacked vertical-boarded volumes, a clerestory band on the upper floor, a shed roof over an open carport with a lamp post, and a walled entry court to the left.
A two-storey Eichler, in Burlingame. Nothing in the published record on this tract mentions two-storey models, which makes this photograph evidence rather than decoration. Note what it does not do: it does not put a bedroom over the living room and call it a day. The upper volume is stepped back and broken into boxes, the clerestory band carries round it, and the whole upper floor sits behind a low shed roof over an open carport — so from the kerb the house still reads horizontal.
A grey Eichler in Burlingame, with a level flat roof and clerestory band across the front and a glazed gable rising behind it, an olive tree, a two-car garage and a brick-edged path.
The gable, set back. Here the gable sits behind the flat roof line rather than over the entry, so it reads as a lit room beyond rather than as a porch. Same components, different arrangement — which is the clearest sign this tract was not built from a single plan.

The two claims

What we searched, and what came back.

ClaimWhere it appearsWhat we found
“Claude Oakland Plan 24”
Said to put the atrium in the centre of the house rather than at the entry, and Mills Estate is said to be among the first to use it		 Several Eichler real-estate sites, in near-identical wording No archival, scholarly or journalistic reference found anywhere. Not in the Berkeley collection listings, not in Eichler Network, not in any preservation document.
“BC-384”
Said to have a three-folded-plate entry		 One Eichler reference site Zero results anywhere on the open web, in any context. The phrase “three-folded-plate entry” likewise returns nothing Eichler-related.

In fairness to “BC-384”: the form is plausible. Eichler plan numbers carried location or architect prefixes — SJ- San Jose, MC- Marin County, HPO- Harbor Point, FC- and FB- in Foster City for Claude Oakland and John Brooks Boyd respectively. A Burlingame prefix would fit that system perfectly.

And model 384 is real — it is a Balboa Highlands plan in Granada Hills, four bedrooms and two baths at 2,443 square feet, with living room, dining room, kitchen, multi-purpose room, atrium and garage. What no source does is attach a BC- prefix to it, or place it in Burlingame.

So the honest position is: a Burlingame plan-number series probably existed, because every other tract had one. We just cannot tell you what the numbers were, and neither can anyone else who has published on it.

The place they would survive is the Oakland & Imada Collection at UC Berkeley, which holds site plans for thirty-six Eichler developments showing lot and model numbers. Until somebody reads that folder, this page stays as it is.

What is documented instead

Five things you can actually rely on.

Claude Oakland drew for this tract
Two original drawings, c.1963 and c.1964, catalogued at UC Berkeley with ID numbers. The citations →
Jones & Emmons drew 8 Mariposa Court
2,135 sq ft, five bedrooms, two baths. The house →
Both atrium and non-atrium plans were built here
2999 Frontera Way has an enclosed atrium of about 428 square feet. 7 Mariposa Court is marketed explicitly as a non-atrium floorplan. Whatever the plan numbers were, there was more than one type. On the atriums →
At least one design had a folded-plate roof over the entry
Reported for Burlingame by name in Eichler Network. No plan number attached. What that means →
A double-gable-with-central-atrium type exists here
Documented through an architect's remodel of a Burlingame Eichler — front and rear gables flanking a central atrium, 2,200 sq ft, five bedrooms.

Sizes and beds for the four houses we verified individually are on the tract page. If you own here and have the original plan sheet, its number is the single most useful thing anyone could give this site.

Talk to us

Do you have the original plan sheet?

A Mills Estate plan number would settle a question no published source can answer. If there is a drawing in your garage, we will scan it properly, hand it straight back, and credit you.