By Beccy Tanner/KMUW
For many people, the American Dream has included owning a house. This month on Hidden Kansas, Beccy Tanner takes us to Great Bend, a place where futuristic, all-metal houses were part of that dream.
For many people, the American Dream has almost always included owning a house.
After World War II, as America faced a housing shortage and military veterans were searching for homes they could buy through the G.I. Bill, the house of the future was an all-metal structure known as a Lustron.
It could be assembled in a few days, was tough enough to face all types of Kansas weather and maintained just like your car – where you washed and waxed it.
An advertisement for the Lustron promised: “The House America is talking about. The Lustron. The almost maintenance free, all-steel, porcelain-enameled home seems like the future. The house built more like a car in a former aircraft factory.”
In Great Bend, alongside the Arkansas River, a Lustron sits among a complex of historic buildings at the Barton County Historical Society. Linda McCaffery is the interim director and explains how the Lustron was donated and moved to the museum site.
The only problem? No one knew for sure how to take it apart and move it piece by piece.
That is until someone found a Lustron construction manual on Ebay.
“They literally took this house apart, 3,300 pieces, and brought it here,” McCaffery said.
“They started at the back and then brought all the pieces here and then reassembled it. It was not an easy task, but we have one of the few that is on a museum ground that is original.”
When the houses first started selling, they were a bargain. They sold for between $8,500 and $9,500, according to a March 1949 article in the Columbus Dispatch – about 25 percent less than comparable conventional housing.
Now considered rare, the homes still occasionally come up for sale – going for anywhere between $67,500 to $219,000, depending on their condition, features and location.
Barton County has 20 Lustron houses; 18 of those are in Great Bend and are still utilized as residential housing.
There are several towns across Kansas that have clusters of the homes: Great Bend, Larned, Garden City, Newton and others. There are less than 100 of the homes in Kansas.
The houses were invented by Carl Strandlund of Chicago, who developed patents for John Deere and Minneapolis-Moline. It was his idea to use enameled steel panels to create low-maintenance homes.
For the few years Lustrons were sold, there were eight dealerships in Kansas. Don Brack was the salesman in Great Bend, who helped sparked interest in the homes.
The Lustron came in four colors: Surf Blue, Dove Gray, Maize Yellow and Desert Tan.
Everything about the Lustron is metal – walls, cabinets, ceilings and doors. Closets are roomier and store more than most homes built in the 21st century.
The homes were fireproof – all metal parts, insulated with fireproof insulation. They were heated with oil-burning furnaces.
Think of mid-century design with all the furnishings.
“You can tell this is metal and this is an interior wall,” McCaffery said, and she knocked on a wall. “It is metal.
“Let’s see, we have some magnets somewhere. That was always one of the things kids loved about it, that you could throw a magnet up on the ceiling or on the wall and it would stick.”
All told, only 2,500 Lustrons were manufactured before the company went bankrupt in 1950. About 1,500 remain today.
But the hopes and dreams they once inspired, live on.
This article was republished here with the permission of: KMUW