National Serro Scotty Organization
 

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Meet Juergen Eichermueller


Carmen, Jensine, Juergen & Kezia Eichermueller

Is a person born a “trailer nut”? I sort of think so. At least in my case I tend to believe it. I was born on May 12th, 1953, in the planning stage of Lucille Ball’s “The Long, Long Trailer” and in the same town in Germany that Bruce Willis was born in. Like most small towns anywhere in the world, everyone is a cousin to someone else and it appears that my mom and his mom are distant cousins from way back when.

My dad was in the US Army and was sent back to the USA in August 1956. The first thing my parents did was purchase a new 1956 Chevy and a new 1956 Pacemaker. It was Pacemaker’s 8×36 foot 2-bedroom All Purpose model since my mother lived in wooden army barracks back in Europe she absolutely adored this trailer and sent many photos back to Germany of her new MODERN home! Interesting enough, her relatives wrote back, shocked, that she was living in a gypsy wagon!

My mom’s favorite pastime as a new American was going to the various trailer sales on weekends and viewing all the new models. Of course she took my small brother and me with her and even as young as three I began collecting trailer brochures and trailer magazines. I still remember most of the trailers we looked at, especially the double-deckers, which were and still are my favorites.

My parents traded up to a 1959 ten-wide Ritz-Craft with 2 bedrooms when they were expecting my sister. After that they moved to Georgia where my dad owned a small motel with restaurant and added a trailer park to the side. The Ritz-Craft was gone and we lived in a 10×60 foot Armor with front separate dining room and three bedrooms. I was still going to the trailer sales (oops! Mobile Home Sales) and still collecting.  At this point in my life I was drawing floor plans and working drawings of trailers and submitting them to various manufacturers and to my surprise my first designs where built in 1964!

In about 1969 my parents moved to northeast Florida where they owned 36 acres on 301 and ran a mobile home sales lot a couple of miles down the road.  During this time I purchased my first trailer, an 8×28 1954 Sportsman, and totally restored it and lived in it until I returned back to Germany in 1975. During my stay in Europe my parents moved to Jacksonville where they owned another restaurant and lived in a larger mobile home in Colonial Mobile Home Park off of Normandy Blvd.

I came back to Florida in the fall of 1979, bought a 1959 8×40 foot Nashua, restored it, and went back to school to study architect. Over the next few years I found various 1950s trailers in and around Jacksonville and in the Daytona and Ocala area of Florida. In the early 80s, most trailer parks were happy if you were willing to haul off one of the old eight-wides. It was a literally goldmine because I was the only person that I knew that loved older trailers and wanted to restore them. I eventually had 15 of them and parked them on lots in the northwest area of Jacksonville and rented them out. I even owned a 1954 Ventoura Loftliner, one of the double-deckers that I so loved. I guess I was the first vintage trailer park in the USA!

I married my long-time sweetheart Carmen on April 1st, 1988 and on March 7th, 1989 our first daughter Kezia was born. On April 1st 1992, we were blessed with out second daughter Jensine. By this time I had sold all of my trailers, and was self-employed in the architectural field of designing large luxury homes in the north Florida area. In 1994 we decided to move back to Germany and I worked here as a registered architect the first couple of years until I was forced into early disability because of various health problems.

Of course I moved all of my trailer material with me and have a basement office in my house with an entire back wall bookcase full of vintage trailer brochures and magazines. I currently have about 500 vintage manufacturers archived and am constantly added more and more whenever time permits. Early disability did not slow me down, at least not in the vintage trailer area! I absolutely love vintage trailers and love helping others that own a vintage trailer and want to restore it to its one time glory. That is the reason I created some of the vintage trailer CDs that I offer for sale since 1999. I am not “making” money on the CDs per se, the little money that comes in goes right back into to collection. And of course many other vintage trailerists have graciously shared with me some of their material, which I share with others. My CDs have been used by four different movie productions in set building and designing of which I am a tiny bit proud to brag about. Even Airstream in Jackson Center, Ohio purchased my Silver Beauties 2CD collection and praised me for the great work I had done in archiving Airstreams! Two of their top men contacted me personally and said I had a much better collection then even they owned and told me if I ever needed help by Airstream to contact them and then they mailed me a super beautiful Airstream book entitled Wanderlust. I was also able to help in a couple of books over the last few years, including Move House and the newest book by Doug Keister.

 

 
National Serro Scotty Organization | Delton, Michigan 49046