Absolutely Prefabulous An all-metal mass-produced house just may be America's architectural ideal. (MONEY Magazine) By Paul Lukas April 1, 1999 (MONE

Absolutely Prefabulous An all-metal mass-produced house just may be America's architectural ideal.
(MONEY Magazine)
By Paul Lukas
April 1, 1999

(MONEY Magazine) – My friend Jennifer lives in Oak Park, Ill., a town that happens to have a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright houses. So every time I visit, she sticks me in the car and takes me on a little tour, saying, "Look, there's a Frank Lloyd Wright house.... And there, that's another one.... Ooh, and over there, Frank Lloyd Wright designed that one, and that one.... And hey, did you see that Frank Lloyd Wright special on PBS?"

All of which is to say: I am so sick of Frank Lloyd Wright. Yes, the guy was a genius, a visionary, blah-blah-blah, and most of his architecture is undeniably lovely. But that's sort of the problem: I've always found his work to be a bit, well, tasteful for a proudly middlebrow nation like America. His houses look like they attended a finishing school--or, worse, make me feel like I should have attended one. I'm not suggesting that we suddenly adopt the trailer park as our national housing ideal. But I do believe there can be a happy medium that would uphold a laudable structural aesthetic and simultaneously honor America's fast-food, mass-production ethos--a non-Wright option for architecture-minded travelers to look for when they're on the road. And I'm happy to report that this ideal can be summed up in one word: Lustron.
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Lustron homes are among the more overlooked and underrated architectural developments to emerge in the wake of World War II. With countless G.I.s returning home, an enamel-products executive named Carl Strandlund saw the need for inexpensive, mass-produced housing. Using $37.5 million in federal loans, he formed the Lustron Corp., whose signature product was a prefab, $7,000, two-bedroom house made entirely of porcelain-enameled steel, inside and out--an all-metal home. Lustrons featured an ingenious radiant heating system, a combination dishwasher/ laundry washer and lots of built-in shelving. Each home was made of about 3,000 separate pieces, all of which were manufactured in Strandlund's Ohio factory, trucked to housing sites and assembled atop a concrete slab foundation. Although production and cash-flow problems put the company out of business within a few years, nearly 2,500 Lustrons were erected between 1948 and 1950. There's no comprehensive registry, but the majority of them appear to have survived, providing an enduring legacy of Strandlund's vision.

So how do you spot a Lustron? Primarily by its characteristic exterior. Instead of shingles, Lustrons feature two-foot-by-two-foot panels of enameled steel, the same stuff that stovetops are made of. Available in pink, tan, yellow, aqua, blue, green or gray, the panels were arranged in rows like giant tiles, screwed into wall studs and sealed with plastic gaskets. Viewed from the street, they give the houses a sort of quilted look. A Lustron is also distinguished by its porcelain-enameled steel roof, which, like the rest of the house, is rust-, termite- and fireproof. Throw in the fact that Lustrons are largely maintenance-free--no need to ever repaint, reshingle or reroof--and it all adds up to what Strandlund called, in the futurist parlance of the day, "a new standard for living."

For the past several years, the best place to see a Lustron was at 411 Bowser Ave. in Chesterton, Ind., where Jim Morrow, a retired building-supply retailer and real estate broker, had turned his Lustron into a public museum. "I felt that the house was so unique that there was no sense keeping it a secret," he says. Although Morrow tired of the museum biz and recently sold the house, the new owner, Brian Coudriet, says he welcomes drive-by Lustron hunters and even the occasional knock on the door from those curious about the interior. (The Chesterton area has another attraction for fans of modernist housing: The nearby community of Beverly Shores features five futuristic homes originally displayed at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair, including George Fred Keck's 12-sided "House of Tomorrow.")

Des Moines is another good place to look for Lustrons. More than a dozen are scattered about the city, including the fourth one ever assembled (originally as a demo model) at 4343 Chamberlain Ave. I got to see that Lustron and most of the others in Des Moines during a recent driving tour with Michael and Stephanie O'Neal, who have their own Lustron at 1136 Polk Blvd. and like to keep tabs on the others in the area. "Ooh, that one looks like it's in perfect shape," said Stephanie as we passed a particularly well-preserved Lustron. "And this one has a two-car garage," said Michael, his voice a mixture of admiration and envy. If the O'Neals seem a bit Lustron-obsessed, it's hard to blame them--the mass-produced houses, with their pastel exteriors, fit so neatly into the realm of pop culture that it's tempting to collect them all.

It's worth noting that Wright once designed a simple, affordable house called the Usonian, but only about 25 were ever built. There are more Lustrons than that in Wright's home state of Wisconsin alone, including one at 717 Porlier St. in Green Bay, which was recently purchased by the music and art luminary known as the Rev. Norb. "I'd driven by this house, and it always looked so cool," he says. "Then I went to an open house. And I said, 'This is great! This is the place for me!'" As for Wisconsin's most famous architect, Norb is unimpressed. "Frank Lloyd Wright?" he sniffs derisively. "What did he ever make that was mass-produced?"

Plenty of other areas offer good Lustron hunting--the houses were built in 35 states, all east of the Rockies, and a simple Yahoo! search usually turns up a few of them in real estate listings. I've also learned that clusters of Lustrons were built in several towns, including the Chicago suburbs of Lombard, Brookfield and Lincolnshire, all of which are just a few miles from the Frank Lloyd Wright houses of Oak Park. Guess where I'm taking Jennifer next time I visit?

Paul Lukas, winner of a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, hopes to have a Lustron of his own one of these days.