Balboa Highlands Eichler Homes and Asian Design Influences
Horizontal Elements
The homes featured a number of design elements that showed Asian influence. The home exteriors are made of wood siding with a vertical groove pattern and the concrete foundation was originally painted a dark blue/black. The generally flat facades make the houses very grounded and horizontal feeling in one sense, but on the other hand the dark foundation makes the houses literally float.
Shoji Screens
Patented Shoji screen style closet doors portray a traditional Japanese feeling. The closet doors appear in all the bedrooms and most models have two additional large hall closets with matching doors on opposite sides of the house. In the Balboa Highlands Tract, the 1963 closet doors are made of teak and burlap cloth. In the 1964 models, the teak closet doors were replaced with metal frame doors.
Sliding Cabinet Doors
In the kitchen the stark contrast in color between the dark stained wood cabinets facings and the white Formica counters and white easy sliding acrylic-coated masonite cabinet doors echoed this Asian influence.
