Yesterday's House of the Future: Lustron Houses

In concept, the Lustron House was to be to the housing industry of the fifties what Henry Ford's Model T was to the automobile industry of the twenties: affordable for the average American family, easy to mass produce, and available in modest variations on one basic no-frills design. Its inventor Carl Strandlund, however, was anything but no-frills and modest. Much like his contemporary, independent automaker Preston Tucker, Strandlund was both a brilliant designer and the consummate risk-taker.

Carl Strandlund

Born in Sweden, Carl Strandlund grew up in Moline, Illinois. While he began his adult career as a horse breeder and racecourse gambler, Strandlund's true love was inventing something from nothing, or building the better mousetrap. Before designing the Lustron House, he had invented a wallpaper removal machine and air conditioners for movie theaters. During World War II, he designed armored panels for army tanks. It was during the production of these tank panels that Strandlund began thinking about mass-producing enamel-coated steel panel houses for the soldiers who would be returning home.

A consummate salesman, Strandlund pitched his affordable manufactured housing project to the federal government's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, convincing them that he'd be able to produce 100 two-bedroom ranch houses per day at a former aircraft factory in Columbus, Ohio. He further claimed that each Lustron House would be made from 3,000 easily assembled parts and would cost $7000 each. The structure itself would termite-proof, rust-proof, and fire-proof; and it would never need painting, siding, or roofing. Also, the walls were all pre-wired and pre-plumbed. Above all, he claimed that each house could be assembled in 72 hours.

Impressed, the RFC gave him the loans necessary to start production.

The Lustron House

While Strandlund assured the production of 100 houses a day, the factory only needed to produce 50 a day to break even. Unfortunately, he had greatly underestimated the plant's production capabilities, and the factory was only able to produce at most 26 Luston Houses per day.

On top of the production discrepancies, the Lustron and Strandlund faced strong opposition from three major forces: construction labor unions, local building code inspectors, and the U.S. Senate banking committee. The construction labor unions saw mass produced manufactured housing as a direct threat to workers in the construction industry. Local building code inspectors were resistant to understanding the differences and similarities between Strandlund's uniquely manufactured houses and traditionally constructed houses. As for the Senate banking committee, they wouldn't allow the government to absorb the financial losses created by Strandlund's faulty production schedule. They ordered the RFC to foreclose on Strandlund and his company.

Even so, 2,500 Lustron homes wound up being built and most are still standing.

Aftermath

When the Lustron Corporation folded, so did Carl Strandlund's finances. A few times, he had tried to revive mass-produced housing ventures, but he met immediate opposition from former foes. A tragic bitter figure in later life, Carl Strandlund died in 1974.

In 2007, the Marine Corps was giving away 58 Lustron houses that were had been part of their Marine Base in Quantico, Virginia for years.

SOURCES:

http://www.wosu.org/archive/lustron/house.php

"The House that Carl built", Paul Lukas, Fortune

"Houses of Steel", Jennie Phipps, Preservation Online

"Carl Strandlund", Lustron Preservation

"Lustron History", Lustron Preservation