Besides the overwhelming natural beauty of the area, Eureka is known by it architectural history, primarily the grand Victorian mansions built during the heyday of the local lumber industry.  Less grand homes and quaint cottages and bungalows built throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century exhibit a broad range of architectural diversity that is widely appreciated and been subject to many a restoration.   The post-war period boom years brought another burst of development here and along with it many wonderful contemporary homes and buildings.  

This site is dedicated to recognizing the historical value of mid-century modern architecture in Humboldt County and creating a community committed to preserving it. 

If you are visiting to learn about  door chimes  click here for a shortcut to that page.  Otherwise, wander around for many other interesting topics.

Tim Wetzel and Mary Castanier moved to Eureka in 2001 looking for a change and hoping to find a vintage modern home, like the Eichler homes we knew in Orange and Santa Clara Counties.   What we found were a surprising number of stylish homes dating from the 1950’s and 60’s.  What we did not find, to our surprise, was any acknowledgement that the homes we sought were anything special, or for that matter even particularly desirable.   After living here for a few years, we have occasionally run into a person who thinks the modern style is interesting, but still we have not found any community of like-minded people focused on preserving modern Eureka.  So here it is…  our personal grass roots campaign to raise the consciousness of the value and historical importance of our modern homes.  

Perhaps it was the very success of local builder-developers like  Ernest Pierson, who furnished the region with a steady supply of affordable modern homes in the post-war period, that makes them seem to many people to be too common to be regarded as anything special.   Indeed there are entire tracts of Pierson-built homes throughout the region, but many of these serve as outstanding examples of affordable modern architecture— then and now. 

We intend for the homes featured on this website to span the range of the modern homes that exist here, from the modest to the grand, from the impeccably maintained to those that could use some attention, from those that are valued by their owners for their architectural quality to those that are valued as simply a good home.  In fact we have a broad range of modern homes here, from custom designed and custom built executive homes to the mass produced tract homes tailored for the working man and woman.

Grand or modest, for us the compelling aspect of the mid-century modern era is that it was the most recent period in the history of American architecture when a forward-looking vernacular style was embraced by the populace as the leading style of the day.  It’s a time in history worthy of saving, and Eureka is rich in that history.

Take a look at our homes.   Click on the picture of each house for more photos.