Lustron Homes Floor Plans

October 30, 2022

Swedish-born Chicago engineer Carl Standlund (1899-1974) founded the Lustron Corporation in 1946 in response to Federal Housing Administration (FHA) support for the construction of large-volume manufactured homes. While this company was neither the first (both Ferro Enamel Corporation and ARMCO Steel exhibited models at the 1933 Century of Progress exhibition) nor the only one (Aladdin, the William Harman Corporation, and even lumberyards premises) to develop manufactured homes, Lustron was among only three companies to receive large loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), an independent government agency established in 1932. After some political wrangling, Lustron received an initial 15, $5 million in 1947, which, coupled with later loans, eventually totaled $32.5 million. Strandlund received this generous funding based on testimony before Congress where he promised that the Lustron Corporation would produce 100 houses a day, each costing $7,500. Chicago architects Roy Burton Blass and Morris H. Beckman—former draftsman for the prominent national firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill—created the initial design model for a two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot ranch-style home with seamless roof, gutters and downspouts to the building. In 1949 and 1950, Lustrons were manufactured at the former Curtiss-Wright Navy Aircraft Factory in Columbus, Ohio. The first Lustron model home, the two-bedroom Esquire, opened to visitors in Chicago on August 11, 1948. Model homes were subsequently displayed in most major cities east of the Rockies, and by the end of 1949, more than 2 million people had visited a Lutron. A rigid production system allowed few opportunities to customize a Lustron, although families could choose from a limited range of exterior colors—Dove Gray, Desert Tan, Surf Blue, and Maize Yellow—and six interior color schemes. In 1948, the company issued "Suggested Land Operations Policies", providing new owners with instructions on how to choose the best land, location, and plantings for their Lustron home. Although not all of these dealers have been definitively identified, it is believed that there were outlets for Lustron homes here in Colorado. New owners of Lustron houses received a package of 3000 individual components, arranged in order of construction and shipped via special open-sided Freuhauf trucks. The Lustron Corporation operated for a relatively short period, going bankrupt in 1950. At the height of productivity, the company's one-month production peak was 270 homes, a figure well below Strandlund's promises to Congress. . Historians analyzing this spectacular failure have pointed to a variety of factors, including higher-than-expected start-up expenses, difficulty obtaining steel, challenges with local building codes, slow mortgage approvals and infighting between unions and other companies vying for the same market. Ultimately, well over budget, Lustron was denied additional federal funding due to a combination of adversarial lobbying and its failure to complete required financial reporting. An estimated 1200 to 1500 Lustron houses remain, with the Westchesters representing the most commonly identified pattern. The Museum of Modern Art's "Home Delivery: Making the Modern Dwelling" exhibit featured the disassembled Krowne House, a Lustron originally located in Arlington, Virginia. Many Lustron Residences have been listed, both individually, as Historic Districts, and as multiple property submissions on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas, New York, Alabama, Florida, and Florida. 'somewhere else.

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Many companies sought ways to capitalize on technologies developed for the war effort and use the surplus industry at their disposal to meet the country's new demand for housing, cars and household goods. consumption. Seeing the need for housing, Strandlund partnered with Chicago architects Roy Burton Blass and Morris H. Beckman to reformat enamel gas stations into ranch houses. Enter a caption (optional)

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Strandlund pitched his idea for an all-steel house to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depression-era federal agency that had set out to solve the postwar housing shortage by selecting three housing manufacturers to subsidize. . Strandlund secured a $12.5 million loan to start the Lustron Corporation, as well as a $428,000 annual lease on half of the dormant Curtis-Wright aircraft factory. Strandlund would return to the RFC in the coming months to apply for more loans with the promise to build 100 houses a day at a cost of $7,500 each. Enter a caption (optional)

All living areas were generously adorned with built-ins, such as a steel vanity in the bedroom, steel shelving for the living room, and steel bathroom cabinets and fixtures. Enter a caption (optional)

Within a year of beginning production, Lustron had recruited 234 authorized dealers for their homes on a franchise system. Enter a caption (optional)

Unfortunately, Strandlund has slightly exceeded its promise of 100 houses per day. Enter a caption (optional)

Lustron had only been manufacturing homes for a little over a year when it was closed. The defunct company left a broken Strandlund, 2,680 homes made and shipped throughout the eastern United States, a long list of unfulfilled orders, and $37.5 million in debt to the federal government. Strandlund died in relative obscurity in the 1970s, but it can be argued that of all the noblest housing solutions offered in the post-war period, his was the most successful. Enter a caption (optional)

Wallace Neff's domes were too weird and Buckmister Fuller's Dymaxion houses were all too together.

Year of registration: 2000

Status: Endangered

City: Statewide

County: Statewide

Additional Features:

2003: The owner of the Harold Hess Lustron house in Closter announced his intention to demolish the house and subdivide the property into two lots. 2/2004: Harold Hess Lustron House owner agreed to fund the Hess House move and gave Closter City Council six months to find a location. (plans never moved forward)

5/2009: The owner of the Harold Hess Lustron house in Closter again requested waivers to subdivide the land on which the house sits into three parcels, agreeing to keep the house on the central parcel if it is allowed to subdivide. 9/2009: The owner of Harold Hess Lustron has revised his proposal to subdivide the Hess House plot into just two, rather than three, lots. THE DESCRIPTION:

Lustron homes are prefabricated ranch-style homes from porcelain-enameled steel components, manufactured using Fordist principles of mass production, marketed through an automobile-like dealership system to individual consumers, and erected on site. Although curators have identified the Lustron House as having historical significance in terms of its association with the post-war housing shortage and as an exemplary type of manufactured home, many of these houses still go unrecognized as historic resources and are destroyed each year (Michelle Anne Boyd, Preserving the Lustron House: Authenticity and Industrial Production, Thesis for the Master of Science in Historic Preservation, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, 2001.). CONTACT:

Pat Garbe Morillo

68 Taylor Drive

Closter, New Jersey 07624

201-646-2161

patmorillo@aol.com

Harold Hess, Owner, Lustron Home

201-768-5838

Michele Boyd, Columbia University

michele.boyd@verizon.net