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One of the Bay Area’s most famous midcentury modern homes — the experimental steel-framed Eichler X-100 in the San Mateo Highlands — is on the market after an ambitious restoration returned the landmark house to its 1950s vision of the “home of tomorrow.”
The X-100 was unlike any other home built by Palo Alto developer Joseph Eichler, whose company became synonymous with affordable midcentury modern tract housing across California. While most Eichler homes relied on wood post-and-beam construction, the X-100 was conceived as an experimental steel-frame house designed to demonstrate how industrial building methods could reshape suburban housing.
Eichler commissioned architects A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons of Jones & Emmons to design the home, perched on a ridge in the unincorporated San Mateo Highlands with sweeping views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Ground was broken in May 1956, and the house opened to the public that October as an “experimental research house.”
“The home was a nod to the future. Everything in the house was state of the art for its time,” said Eichler home specialist Eric Boyenga of the Boyenga-Compass realty team, the listing agents for the property, which hit the market April 29.
The X-100 centered around two indoor gardens — the “entry garden” and “game garden.” Photo by Sabrina Huang, courtsy the Boyenga-Compass realty team. 
Eichler’s X-100 was designed as an experimental research house in 1956. Photo by Sabrina Huang, courtsy the Boyenga-Compass realty team. 
The X-100 featured prototype appliances, including a two-burner cooktop for warming food between the sliding sections of the built-in dining table. Photo by Sabrina Huang, courtsy the Boyenga-Compass realty team. 
The kitchen was placed at the center of the house, reflecting a more casual lifestyle. Photo by Sabrina Huang, courtsy the Boyenga-Compass realty team. 
A metal curtain divides the bedroom from the rest of the house. Photo by Sabrina Huang, courtesy the Boyenga-Compass realty team.
A midcentury showcase
The project also served as a marketing tool for Eichler’s then-remote Highlands development, attracting massive crowds curious about futuristic domestic life, Boyenga said. More than 150,000 people toured the home in its first three months after opening in 1956, while national publications including Life, Popular Science and Sunset featured the residence.
The X-100 incorporated a long list of cutting-edge ideas for the era: radiant floor heating, track lighting, plastic skylight “skydomes” spanning the width of the house, sliding glass walls and prototype appliances, including a dishwasher, garbage disposal, intercom system, built-in blender and a two-burner cooktop for warming food between the sliding sections of the built-in dining table. Even the home’s original rotating conical fireplace was designed to feel futuristic.
“The kitchen is unbelievable because the way it was built is like what we see in modern homes today,” Boyenga said.
Rather than isolating the kitchen behind walls, the design placed it at the center of the house for communal living, reflecting the more casual lifestyle emerging in the late 1950s.
Instead of the open-air atriums later associated with Eichler homes, the X-100 centered around two indoor gardens — the “entry garden” and “game garden” — designed by landscape architect Douglas Baylis to blur the boundaries between architecture and nature.
Circular motifs appeared throughout the property, from the backyard patio to the swimming pool, which was formed by intersecting circles. Thin steel supports and floor-to-ceiling glass heightened the sense of openness, while a metal star sculpture by artist Matt Kahn still marks the front façade.
Restoring a landmark
According to the home’s history on the Eichler X-100 website, Eichler sold the X-100 for $47,000 in 1957 to furniture importer Jesper Petersen. Petersen’s secretary then purchased the home in 1964 and lived there until her death in 2003.
Afterward, the house faced an uncertain future.
That changed when Marty Arbunich, founder and director of the Eichler Network, and a group of preservation-minded partners purchased the property. Concerned the home could be heavily altered or expanded, the group instead pursued a meticulous rehabilitation intended to preserve its historic character.
Arbunich became sole owner in 2013 and launched the extensive X-100 Renewal Project, a two-year effort that brought together designers, contractors and preservation specialists to restore the home.
“The owner was really enthusiastic about keeping the home original. He spent a lot of time rehabilitating it. It was a labor of love,” Boyenga said. “The home isn’t much different from when it was originally put on the market.”
The rehabilitation included restoring the home’s open carport, rebuilding fencing and landscaping inspired by Baylis’ original plans, restoring the swimming pool and deck, replacing rooftop spotlights and reinstalling distinctive architectural details, including the decorative side-yard fence.
One of the most striking restorations involved the master bedroom, where the original fabric room divider was recreated using a custom metal chain curtain. Crews also restored the home’s wood siding after removing later metal coverings and introduced new gates echoing the property’s circular geometric themes.
The work was not simple. On the X-100 website detailing the renovation, Arbunich described unexpected structural and preservation complications that pushed costs to more than double the project’s original budget.
Still, the effort helped secure a major milestone for the property. In 2016, the X-100 was added to the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing both its architectural significance and its role in postwar California design history.
Today, nearly 70 years after debuting as a futuristic experiment, the X-100 remains one of the most recognizable and unusual homes in the Eichler legacy.
More information about the home’s history and sales listing can be found at Eichler X-100.
