Pomeroy Green’s Townhouses: Eichler Design at the Scale of a Shared Landscape

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

Pomeroy Green broadens the familiar picture of an Eichler home. Instead of a detached, single-story house, the Santa Clara community uses attached two-story townhouses arranged within a shared landscape.

The design is interesting because it addresses both the interior of a home and the space between buildings. Repeated plans and grouped structures create a different relationship with outdoor space from the individual-lot pattern found in many suburban neighborhoods.

The cluster plan brought several homes into each building

In its 2021 account of the historic nomination, California State Parks describes sixteen residential buildings containing between two and eight townhouses apiece, plus a clubhouse, within extensively landscaped grounds.

The state identifies Joseph Eichler, architect Claude Oakland and landscape architects Sasaki, Walker and Associates. It highlights the project’s early use of cluster development.

That term describes an important shift in planning scale. The landscape is organized in relation to groups of homes, rather than understood entirely as a sequence of separate front and back yards.

A building’s position can therefore contribute to a larger outdoor room. The quality of the setting depends on the arrangement of several structures and the open spaces they create together.

Repeated plans use mirrored relationships

The community’s own architectural account explains that the homes share a plan, with neighboring units arranged as mirror images. It dates Pomeroy Green to 1961.

Mirroring can establish a rhythm without requiring every entrance and interior to face in exactly the same direction. The relationship between adjoining homes becomes part of how the building is composed.

For a buyer comparing attached housing, this is a useful distinction. The plan of one unit is only part of the architectural story; its relationship with the next unit and the surrounding common space also matters.

Glass and skylights respond to an attached form

The community account describes tall sliding doors and adjacent glazing in downstairs living areas, concrete-block side walls and five skylights upstairs. It also identifies exposed beams and tongue-and-groove ceiling decking.

Those features reveal how the design brings daylight into an attached home. Where side walls provide separation, the ends of the unit and the roof become especially important sources of light.

The section through the building is therefore as informative as the floor plan. A skylight can illuminate an upper circulation area that would otherwise depend on light borrowed from other rooms.

This is a specific adaptation of modern residential ideas to a denser housing form. Openness and daylight are being pursued within a shared-wall arrangement rather than through four freely glazed exterior sides.

Landscape and architecture work at different scales

A townhouse interior is experienced room by room, while a cluster landscape is experienced through the route between buildings. The clubhouse adds another scale: a shared destination within the community.

That combination helps explain why the state’s architectural account credits both the building designer and landscape architects. The project’s identity comes from the relationship between the homes and their setting, rather than either considered alone. The shared ground is an active part of the residential design.

It also gives a more precise way to compare housing types. A detached home, a townhouse in a cluster and an apartment within a larger building can each offer modern design while providing very different relationships with outdoor space.

Our Santa Clara condo and townhome guide addresses ownership considerations separately. Explore real estate and home for sale in Santa Clara, and contact Diamond to compare homes with attention to the actual plan, daylight and surrounding landscape.

Sources checked October 28, 2026. This article explains architectural planning; current ownership documents and maintenance arrangements require their own property-specific review.