Not something I have seen before, but, I wonder what shape it is behind the aluminum. Maybe it could be restored? Its quite attractive.

I've not seen it before either, but you can be fairly sure the house wasn't resided in its first decade (and during the depression). Replicating it in large quantities would be tedious.

wow, that's pretty wild. I'd assume it was the original siding by the timing and because it was clearly time-consuming to create that pattern on wood. I also notice in your first photo that the top of your house has the pattern stacked neatly, like a standard basket weave... and the bottom of your house has a random pattern. It must have been stained originally, then painted yellow at some point, then covered up.