Prefabricated of porcelain-enameled steel components, the Lustron home could be mass produced like the automobile and marketed through an automobile-style dealer system to individual consumers who could then erect the home on site. Call Jim Morrow at (219) 926-3669 to discuss the home or to arrange for a tour during off-season or off-hours, or write to him at P.O. Other advertisements proclaimed that the homes were fireproof, decay-proof, rustproof, termite-proof, vermin-proof and rat-proof. Many of these houses have been lost over the past fifty years, and most of the remaining houses are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. He reportedly was financially and physically ruined by the failure of his company, and lived in relative obscurity until his death in 1974. St. Louis Lustron owner Gail Rock has lived in her steel home for about nine years. Almost all of the parts in these houses were steel, and the panels used for the interior and exterior walls, the ceiling, and the roof were coated with porcelain enamel. According to Tom and other Lustron-lovers, the best part is that the houses are nearly maintenance free. Lustrons were designed to be built on a slab, with the exterior steel walls carrying the weight of the house. But wartime restrictions on steel were still in place and federal regulators turned down Strandlunds request in 1946. Only 2,500 remain, and we found seven on the market. This success is a result of the hard work of all of the participants and the teamwork exemplified in carrying out the Section 106. The Lustron House Project. Since heat rises, however, most Lustron residents found the ceilings hot in their homes and the floors cold. As a result of heavy spring snow melts in April 1997, the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota endured immense flooding along the Red River. Sunlight, salt water or chemical fumes cannot stain or fade the homes finish. Choosing the best realtor for your old house, How to protect your old house after you're gone. The Lustron Corporation was only able to produce about 2,500 of these houses before they were forced to close. The Society's Lustron Home The Society's headquarters in Whitehall Community Park is a relocated Lustron home that was initially built in 1949 at 5099 Spring Valley Road, ... Parts were moved using members' cars, trucks and trailers, including a massive flatbed that is used to transport earth-moving equipment. But one of the most promising ventures was the Lustron Home by businessman and inventor Carl Strandlund. Another Lustron owner, Barb Hughes agrees. The City of Grand Forks divided the project into three phases, of which FEMA participation was limited to Phase I: Although the house originally took thirty days to assemble, it was taken apart in nine days in the Spring of 2001. Other than that the house is in great shape and all original. The company claimed, The entire ceiling is the source of smooth, even heat. Nor, as it turns out, was there ever again a house like the Lustron. Nearly 3,000 of these homes were built in 18 months, though only a fraction of them still remain, many in the Midwest. Lustron garages are similar to the house, but there are some construction differences. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a federal agency created in 1932 to jump-start economic recovery, approved Strandlunds ideas, giving him a a $12.5 million dollar loan to start his new business. In addition, the flood and fires leveled at least half of the City's downtown. Each home was made up of a series of panels that are bolted together. Some are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the. Despite the company's claims of smooth, even heat from the radiant ceiling panels, most Lustron home owners found the system cold and uncomfortable. It was inevitable that the hunger for new technologies and scientific ways would hit the architectural scene and create a radically new house. Despite the lack of maintenance, these two homes have endured the 50 plus years in fairly good condition. ... “Before moving … Strandlund was unable to secure alternate financing. Originally he hoped to obtain enough steel to start construction on millions of dollars worth of steel-paneled gas stations for Standard Oil and other corporate clients. It took 350 hours to construct the Lustron, still far less than for a conventional home, but much more than the 150 hours first estimated. They were prefabricated in an abandoned bomber factory, using many of the materials and techniques developed and employed during the war. Vowing to mass-produce steel houses at the rate of 100 a day, Strandlund landed $37 million in government loans. Can be kept clean with damp cloth. Ohio businessman Carl Strandlund believed he had the just the solution. Never needs repainting, redecorating or reroofing. He might be right. "An old fellow who lives down the street told me that he remembers watching this home being built," says Bell. The City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, used the FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for the removal of the historic Lustron house from its site in the 100-year floodplain near the Red River. Both the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) each contributed close to $300 million in low-interest loans and re-building funds to individuals and communities, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contributed more than $500 million in housing aid and infrastructure repair. If youre fussy, you can hose them down and scrub them with a brush. According to Tom Fetters book, The Lustron Home, the manufacture of one Lustron required 12 tons of steel and one ton of enamel. A ceiling-mounted, oil-fired hot air furnace heated the metal ceiling tiles which would then heat the entire house. Lustron owners are scrambling to find some kind of make-do replacement parts for these rollers. Note the original gutter and bracket on this Lustron. Tom relates that in talking with most of these Lustron owners, hes only found one person who did not love his Lustron. Dealers needed $50,000 to $100,000 to get started. What things in your home will your grandkids make fun of? According to Lustron Corporation documents, 35 Lustron Homes were sold within the state of North Carolina. The federal government quickly passed legislation banning non-essential construction so that all materials and labor could be diverted to the immediate need of supplying new housing. A half century later, speculation about the events leading to the demise of the company remains. Anoral history from one of the original builders of Lustron homes corroborates that account. Jim Morrow's Lustron in Chesterton, Indiana. For example, the house is entirely steel construction, whereas the garage is all wood construction. Politicians questioned the wisdom of giving more federal money to Strandlund, whose company failed to file required reports with federal lending agencies. And sadly, many Midwestern cities (which is where most Lustrons can be found), have a story to share about a Lustron that has been or soon will be demolished. In November of 2006, Landmark Consulting was commissioned by Historic Albany Foundation and funded by a PreserveNY grant to locate, research, document and nominate the Lustron Houses throughout the state that were worthy of recognition and preservation to the State and National Register of Historic Places. We are proud of Region VIII's efforts to advocate historic preservation in its mitigation projects. It will never face, crack or peel. It is so much fun to have a Lustron. Strandlund didnt start out to build houses. Their architectural prototype was a two-bedroom, 1,000-square foot home with an exterior sheathing made of 2-foot square steel panels. In addition, the Grand Forks Historical Society agreed that the house could be reconstructed on the property of one of its museums. A utility room off the kitchen housed the hot-water-heater and also the furnace. The Carlisle School District has a Lustron home located on it’s property, and has donated it to the Historical Society if that group can move the house to a new location. Its like having the sun for a ceiling! Assembly time at the site was less than 300 man-hours. One of the largest collections of Lustrons is at Quantico, a Marine base in Virginia. A modest circa 1950 wood-frame house cost $8,000, whereas the all-steel Lustron sold for close to $11,000. (Click on small pictures for a larger view). FEMA documented this process through photographs and a video recording to assist in the reconstruction of the house. Choosing the best realtor for your old house, How to protect your old house after you're gone. The homes were distributed through a network of Lustron builder-dealers franchised to erect houses within a given geographical area. The dealers were responsible for selling and construction, including acquiring the land and preparing the site. It turns out that the Lustron home was too good to be true. The 60 Lustrons there have undergone several renovations, but may soon be demolished. This St. Louis Lustron is in nearly mint condition with its original siding and roof, validating the company's claims of a durable and low-maintenance home. The RFS also approved a $428,000 annual lease on one side (half) of the 1.2 million square foot Curtiss-Wright plant in Columbus, Ohio (which had been used during the war to build warplanes). SARASOTA -- An oddity of housing history, a metal house at 1805 Datura St. is about to be evicted. Only 2,500 were made over two years, and very few stand today. The first time Todd Zeiger heard of a Lustron house he was in college, where one of his historic-preservation classes focused on post-World War II homes designed to assuage housing shortages for returning GIs. According to Lustron Corporation documents, 35 Lustron Homes were sold within the state of North Carolina. All agree that finding someone to work on these unique homes is a real challenge. Never before in America a House Like This, read the 1949 Lustron advertisement in that venerable chronicle of American life, The Saturday Evening Post. Ronald Rehfeld on November 10, 2019 at 7:05 PM Through an old newspaper column, I was alerted to a Lustron house being built in a small community close to me, in the 1950s. Even with additional loans, the company was unable to produce the promised 100 houses a day. “There aren’t very many of these houses […] The homes cost the dealers $6,000 each and had to be bought in large quantity. >> Part 1: "Never before in America:" The invention of the Lustron>> Part 2: "Metal Homes without Wheels">> Part 3: Oral History -- Lustron homes: Proving their mettle after 50 years>> Part 5: St. Louis Lustrons>> Part 6: Living in a Lustron -- and loving it, Part 1: "Never before in America:" The invention of the Lustron, Part 3: Oral History -- Lustron homes: Proving their mettle after 50 years, Part 6: Living in a Lustron -- and loving it, Old house insulation: common problems and solutions, Energy efficient and authentic: home windows for old house styles, Old house winterizing: Be ready when the temperature drops, Old house additions: how to add on a sunroom, Taking the rebate: How to score incentives for home retrofit projects, 6 of America's most popular old home styles, How to turn an old playhouse into a chicken coop. Bedrooms had sliding doors to eliminate space needed for door swing. It’s a humble ranch built in a Columbus, Ohio, airplane factory and delivered by truck, yet its design was celebrated at the MoMA in 2008. Once an order was received, the materials moved from the warehouse and were delivered, literally in stacks, on the property. Whatever the reason for the Lustron Companys failure, the claims of durability and ease of maintenance of the steel homes have stood the test of time. Lustron Homes took the U.S. by storm in the late 1940s, as they helped remedy the nation’s post-war housing crisis. At this date, the house components have been cleaned and stored, and the original site of the house has been restored to green space. Since the homes were sold through distribution systems, similar to the automobile industry, dealers had to have sufficient capital to buy vacant lots, pour concrete foundations, and run utility lines to the houses. The low-maintenance, ultra-modern homes fascinated Americans. The kitchen was an engineering marvel all its own. According to Bethany Emenhiser’s November 19, 2016, Homes story, only about half of the 2,680 Lustron homes manufactured between 1948 and 1950 still remain throughout the United States, and about 180 still exist in Indiana. Back orders accumulated, and buyers faced long delivery delays. Serious cost overruns and production problems added fuel to the fire. But in spite of the interest, Strandlunds company was mired in financial problems. >> Part 4: Moving (and saving) a Lustron home >> Part 5: St. Louis Lustrons >> Part 6: Living in a Lustron -- and loving it. TIA. Note: This page is part of a series on Lustron homes. The first Lustron home rolled off the assembly line in March 1948. It featured a built-in, under-the-sink Thor washing machine that, with the installation of a special rack, did double-duty as a dishwasher -- a futuristic luxury at the time. Fifty years after these houses were built, owners find that they were unusually well built and well designed. After a model Lustron was completed in Chicago on August 11, 1948, more than 50,000 people toured the home, according to Fetters book. I live in a prefabricated, all-steel home called a Lustron, assembled in 1949. But Strandlunds Lustron Company produced just 2,500 of these homes of the future, before declaring bankruptcy in 1950. No maintenance except a simple wash down with the garden hose. The house at 6 W. Lamartine St. is Knox County’s last remaining Lustron Home. Think about it. Tooling the factory was more difficult and expensive than originally estimated and the initial $12.5 million government backed loan did not cover start-up expenses. Steel “Lustron” homes, built between 1948-1950, were supposed to be the prefab housing of the future. Price varied even within the state of North Carolina. The project involved the cooperative efforts of the City of Grand Forks, the North Dakota Division of Emergency Management, the Historical Society of North Dakota (SHPO), the Grand Forks Historic Commission, and FEMA Region VIII. Built-ins abounded, accounting for 20 percent of the total interior space. Box 508, Chesterton, Indiana 46304-0508. oral history from one of the original builders of Lustron homes, Part 3: Oral History -- Lustron homes: Proving their mettle after 50 years, Part 4: Moving (and saving) a Lustron home, Part 6: Living in a Lustron -- and loving it, Old house insulation: common problems and solutions, Energy efficient and authentic: home windows for old house styles, Old house winterizing: Be ready when the temperature drops, Old house additions: how to add on a sunroom, Taking the rebate: How to score incentives for home retrofit projects, 6 of America's most popular old home styles, How to turn an old playhouse into a chicken coop. The extent of the damage to residential areas quickly caused a critical housing shortage in the City, and created unusual hardships for low-income households, especially for those individuals and families without flood insurance. Lustron owners found that despite the company's claims, the laws of physics prevailed. The houses dont wear out, but the door rollers (for the sliding doors) wear out. Morrow purchased the home in 1990, and was so intrigued by history of the Lustron that he turned the home into a museum. Many of the devastated areas were turn-of-the-century neighborhoods located close to the river. The worst part about living in a Lustron is that you cant find repair materials anymore, he said. This was supposed to be how the radiant heat worked. Because of the war and the 12-year depression preceding it, very few new homes had been built since 1929, resulting in a severe housing shortage for soldiers returning from WWII. Lustron houses are unique examples of the nation's response to housing shortages following World War II. St. Louis resident and Lustron aficionado Tom Bakersmith has documented 70 Lustrons in the St. Louis area. The house now awaits reconstruction at its new site. Photo: Jack Boucher, Historic American Building Survey, 1994. CARLISLE, Iowa- The Carlisle Historical Society is raising funds to move a unique historic home in Carlisle. Thomas Fetters, in his book Lustron Homes: The History of a Postwar Prefabricated Housing Experiment, interviewed former Lustron Vice President Joe Tucker, who said, “[The government foreclosure] broke everybody’s heart. At the end of 1949, Lustron had 234 dealers, located in 35 states. The first Lustron house was produced in March 1948. Strandlund then turned his energies to demonstrating that houses could be built quickly, efficiently and economically with these same steel panels. It is one of approximately 200 left in the state, according to Ohio History Connection, with roughly 2,000 remaining nationwide. The History of Prefabrication, written in 1945, made this prophetic statement about the all-steel, prefabricated house. Original floor plan for a two-bedroom Lustron home. Contractors would pour a foundation and in two weeks, the house would be ready for move-in. A total of 2,498 Lustron Homes were manufactured over the next two years. In his book, The Lustron Home, Tom Fetters suggests that the company was brought down in part by jealous trade unions and builders. Working with Strandlund, Chicago architects Roy Burton Blass and Morris H. Beckman sketched out some ideas for an all-steel, prefabricated, bungalow-flavored home. (In later years, Lustron also offered one bedroom and three bedroom homes and alternate floor plans for the two bedroom.). The fact that none of these (1930s steel homes) systems achieved commercial success does not necessarily prove that none of them will ever do so. See more ideas about prefab homes, prefab, house. To other parts of this story. From FEMA's standpoint, the project was successful in achieving hazard mitigation goals - removing people and property from an area subject to frequent flooding - and preserving a unique facet of twentieth century history. Bell's home is a Westchester model, and it still carries the stamped-metal tag on the kitchen wall that identifies it as a "Lustron Home — A New Standard for Living — Model 0-2." Model homes were built throughout the Midwest and curious visitors and potential buyers tromped through the prefab homes by the thousands. I’ll be moving into a Lustron home, and a couple of panels are rusting. Ambitious brochures and advertisements called it The newest kind of heating for the newest kind of house. MOUNT VERNON – Seventy years to the day, the Lustron home on Lamartine Street in Mount Vernon was rededicated with a blessing by a descendent of the original homeowner/builder. The heat was uneven and uncomfortable, and since warm air rises, the floors of Lustrons were cold. In North Carolina, a Lustron home could be purchased for a price between $4440, again for the two-bedroom Newport, to $7087 for the three-bedroom Westchester Deluxe. >> Part 2: "Metal Homes without Wheels">> Part 3: Oral History -- Lustron homes: Proving their mettle after 50 years>> Part 4: Moving (and saving) a Lustron home>> Part 5: St. Louis Lustrons>> Part 6: Living in a Lustron -- and loving it. The process proved a successful alternative to demolition, thus minimizing the "adverse effect" to the Lustron House. A handful of the homes were built over basements, but this required the design assistant of an architect or structural engineer. Everyone from congressmen to consumers began questioning the financial feasibility of the Lustron Company. This pair of Lustrons sits on a large farm in southwest Illinois. The master bedroom had a built-in vanity, with large drawers and additional storage space overhead. Of those 70 homes, only three needed roofing work in the last five decades, and each of those was due to storm damage. The … Many suggest that Strandlunds Lustron was an idea ahead of its time. (Photo: Historic American Building Survey) Lustron promoted their homes as maintenance-free. Meanwhile Federal Housing Administration financing procedures slowed down the approval of mortgages, hampering quick sale of the homes. Were Strandlunds homes too far-fetched and expensive to be commercially profitable, as the government claimed when it called in $12.5 million of loans and forced the company into bankruptcy? The shiny new Lustrons cost $6,000 - $10,000 (not including building lot) and were manufactured in the Columbus factory in about 400 man-hours. Original metal tiles from a Lustron roof are in as good condition as when the home was built more than 40 years ago. This made it much easier for us to add the door. A Lustron Home could be sent on a truck fro m the factory and erected on a slab in as little as two or three days. Dec 5, 2020 - Explore Carol Dustin's board "Lustron Homes" on Pinterest. The tours are free, but donations are welcome. The exterior color options were pink, tan, yellow, aqua, blue, green and gray. He died on Christmas Eve in 1974. The homes also cost more to produce than expected, and the retail price grew well beyond the original $7,000 figure. This project involved a statewide survey of more than 95 Lustron homes … Strandlund lived in obscurity for nearly two decades before moving to Minneapolis in 1973. (Photo: Historic American Building Survey) Promotional photo from a Lustron ad. What things in your home will your grandkids make fun of? The luxury of a built-in dishwasher left the lady of the house plenty of time to sit and admire her modern living room, in this promotional photo. Some owners use automotive paste-wax on the walls to renew the shiny finish. The City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, used the FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for the removal of the historic Lustron house from its site in the 100-year floodplain near the Red River. In North Carolina, a Lustron home could be purchased for a price between $4440, again for the two-bedroom Newport, to $7087 for the three-bedroom Westchester Deluxe. When a Lustron house located in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was slated for demolition, ... Carl Sandburg was Vice President of Sales for Lustron homes. Jones, a home appraiser for many years, knew some history of Lustron homes which he shared with Kirsten. She said, Everyone who comes in the house touches the inside walls and asks, theyre metal, too? Lustrons, I’ve heard, can get all sorts of critters in them, usually into the attic through gap in panels, or into the access panels in the utility room through gaps along the side of the house. One of the many residences inundated by floodwaters along Lincoln Drive in Grand Forks was the Lustron House, a three-bedroom pre-fabricated steel house built in the 1950s. The prefabricated, ready-to-assemble houses were shipped in 3,000 pieces on a specially designed truck. Many of the furnaces were soon replaced with traditional forced air systems with ductwork and registers in every room.
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