Green Gables for kids
The Houses That Won a Prize. The true story of Green Gables, near Palo Alto, CA, told for kids.
Read along
Look out the window. Do any houses look flat and low, like they are lying down for a nap? Those are special! A builder named Joseph Eichler built the first sixty-three of them in 1950. Here is the whoa part: they have no second floor at all.
Not one! Every room is on the same level, like a pancake. Regular families could live in cool, modern houses, and back then that was a bold idea. Magazines loved them. One magazine gave the neighborhood a prize called Subdivision of the Year.
Ding-dong, winner! Here is your job. Look for houses that are only one story tall, with no stairs up to a second floor. Can you count how many you see before we drive away?
Quiz the back seat
Which house won the neighborhood prize: the pancake-flat kind with no second floor, or a skyscraper with a hundred floors?
Show the answer
Flat houses with one story. Yes! The Green Gables houses are one-story houses with no second floor, and the neighborhood is now listed as a historic place.
Fun facts
- Joseph Eichler built the first 63 Green Gables homes in 1950.
- A magazine gave Green Gables the prize Subdivision of the Year.
- The houses in Green Gables are one-story houses with no second floor.
- Green Gables is listed as a historic place.
For grown-ups
Every Tumbly story is checked claim by claim against the sources below before it's published; stories that don't pass stay off the app and this site. Narration is pre-recorded, and nothing you do on this page is tied to your kids.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gables_(Palo_Alto,_California)
- deleonrealty.com/2017/neighborhood-spotlight-green-gables-palo-alto
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gables_(Palo_Alto%2C_California)
- esquirepropertymanagementgroup.com/green-gables-palo-alto-property-management
- yourhomeinsiliconvalley.com/blog/a-residents-guide-to-palo-altos-most-cherished-eichler-neighborhoods
- eichlernetwork.com/article/historic-quest-eichlers-national-register
- ohp.parks.ca.gov/ListedResources/Detail/N2291
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