CPHD
Arlington's Lustron Houses
Arlington's Krowne Lustron House Featured in Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) NYC Summer Exhibit
The Krowne Lustron house will be a central feature of this summer's MOMA exhibition on modern pre-fabricated housing. The exhibit, entitled Home Delivery: Fabrication of the Modern Dwelling, will run from July 20th to October 20th. Learn more about the exhibit and the Krowne Lustron House by visiting the exhibition website for MOMA.
Lustron Documentation Booklet Now Available ONLINE!
If you want to learn more about the fascinating all metal Lustron house – and Arlington’s recent preservation of its very own Krowne Lustron – check out the newly published booklet entitled The Illustrious Lustron: A Guide for the Disassembly and Preservation of America’s Modern Metal Marvel. Funded by a grant from the Arlington Committee on Jamestown 2007, the booklet offers an overview of the history and significance of Lustrons and chronicles the disassembly of a mint-condition Lustron that was donated to the County in 2006. The Illustrious Lustron was co-authored by Cynthia Liccese-Torres, County Historic Preservation Planner, and Kim A. O’Connell, an Arlington-based preservation journalist who also serves on the Board of Directors of the Arlington Heritage Alliance. To obtain a hard copy of the booklet, please contact Cynthia Liccese-Torres at 703.228.3831. Quantities are limited, so reserve yours today!
COMING SOON: Stay tuned to this page for a link to a companion Lustron video that was produced in conjunction with this project.
LUSTRON NEWS: Local efforts to save Arlington’s very own Krowne Lustron House are highlighted in the July/August issue of Preservation magazine! To learn more about this project, as well as recent Lustron preservation efforts across the nation, check out this feature article
History of the Lustron House
The Lustron house is a pre-fabricated, all-metal house created and developed in the post-World War II era. The design and manufacture of Lustrons aimed not just to satisfy an overwhelming and immediate need for affordable housing, but to raise the quality of living for middle-class Americans. Lustrons were ingenious not only in their materials, but also for their open floor plan, space-saving built-in cabinetry, and virtually maintenance-free and fireproof all-metal construction. Only 2,680 Lustrons were built in the United States between 1948 and 1950. Despite the high ideals and the enthusiasm generated by these buildings, national politics and intrigue abruptly terminated their production.
Lustron creator Carl Strandlund was inspired by the mass production efficiency of automobile factories and strived to use similar principles in Lustron production. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, the Lustron factory was a former warplane plant with acres of space – said to be almost 22 football fields – large enough to contain the giant conveyor belts, welding rigs, punching/stamping machines, sheet-metal presses, frit grinders, enamel sprayers, and drying ovens needed for the production of each house’s 3,000 parts. The design capitalized on recent advances in the use and production of steel porcelain enamel panels. The ranch-style houses built by the Lustron Corporation represented the largest group of steel porcelain enamel homes ever constructed.
They are significant as the only successful widespread use in history of porcelain enamel as an interior and exterior building material for single-family homes. This use of porcelain-enameled steel marked another milestone in 20th century attempts to use industrial materials for housing. In essence, Lustrons were the ultimate kit houses, arriving on site in specially commissioned trailers packed in reverse order so that the builder could access the components in the order needed, with the trailer serving as on-site storage during construction. Assembly time with an experienced crew was typically about 350 hours, far less than for a conventional house. A national sensation, though short-lived, was created around this “house of tomorrow.” With financial backing from the Federal government, Lustrons became approved houses under the guaranteed mortgage program for returning veterans. At around $10,000, they were priced similarly to other tract houses, although slightly more than their originally projected cost of $7,000. Several 2- and 3-bedroom models offered variety in size and price, with the 2-bedroom Westchester Deluxe the most popular.
Despite a positive reception by the American public, Lustron was plagued by a variety of problems that contributed to its demise. First and foremost, the factory could not keep up with its original projections of 100 houses per day. The Lustron house was also designed with too many variable parts to have an efficient and productive assembly line. Because most of the parts and steel stamping press machines were designed uniquely for the Lustron, the factory was unable to produce standard parts which could have been sold for additional revenue – such as bathtubs – during idle time. These inefficiencies led to higher costs that were passed on to the consumer. Problems in the sales, finance, and construction process also persisted. Varying local building codes also proved to be a significant barrier in some areas of the country. The company helped individual dealers lobby local jurisdictions for changes in codes that restricted the construction of steel-frame housing, but it was impossible to address the problem in any kind of nationwide effort.
In 1949, the company underwent a drastic reorganization and tried developing new strategies to help ease production, financing and dealer problems. It had received more than 20,000 orders, but manufactured less than 2,500 homes. The federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which had backed the Lustron Corporation in the form of government loans, attempted to “help” Lustron succeed through some heavy-handed involvement in replacing the company’s top executives. The actions of new Lustron staff and the RFC's appointed oversight committee were ethically questionable, and scandal over favoritism and influence-peddling eventually led to a reorganization of the agency itself. But as for Lustron, top RFC leaders had finally decided to cut their losses and shut the company down. They called in the loan and the company was forced to close and sell its assets in February 1950.
Arlington County's Lustron Houses: Recent Preservation Efforts
Because of their small size and unusual construction, Lustrons are at great risk for redevelopment and are becomingly increasingly rare. This is especially true in Arlington County, due to the increasingly high value of the lots on which they are located. Arlington County originally boasted eleven, which was the second highest number in Virginia (next to the shipment of about 60 to Marine Corps Base Quantico), as well as the largest quantity in the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. region. Today, only six Lustrons survive in Arlington County – five remain intact on their original lots, with the Krowne Lustron House already disassembled and stored in a portable trailer and awaiting reassembly.
Arlington is a community that is still in the process of recognizing that its many early-20th century neighborhoods are indeed historic. The fact is that all Lustron houses are now over the fifty-year age threshold beyond which buildings are considered potentially significant by the National Park Service. Several states, including Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and South Dakota, have successfully added their Lustrons to the National Register of Historic Places.
In April 2006, Arlington County was presented with an extraordinary opportunity to preserve Arlington’s best remaining Lustron when owner Clifford M. Krowne offered the house to the County Board for public use with the single condition that the house be moved from its original lot. This particular house is closer to mint condition than any other Lustron remaining in the County. Like all of the Lustrons originally built in Arlington, the Krowne Lustron House was built in 1949 and is a Westchester Deluxe 02 model with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and 1,085 square feet of living space on one level. With the exception of the kitchen appliances, this home still retains all of its original interior and exterior features, including: the built-ins in the dining room, living room, and bedroom; the sliding pocket doors in the bedrooms and bathroom; all the metal paneling and roofing; all the bathroom fixtures and Art Deco-styled bathtub; all the windows and doors; and the original Gas-o-matic furnace unit that still functions.
On April 26, 2006, the County Board officially accepted the donation of the Krowne Lustron House and authorized funding to have the house disassembled and all of its components placed in temporary storage. Not only did this action save the house from demolition, it reinforces the County’s commitment to historic preservation in general and Arlington’s more recent architectural past in particular. County Historic Preservation Planner Cynthia Liccese-Torres has been leading the effort to save the Krowne Lustron House, overseeing all aspects of the project before, during, and after the disassembly. Ms. Torres is working with other County staff in the Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development (DCPHD) and the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources (DPRCR), along with the Board of Directors of a local preservation non-profit Arlington Heritage Alliance (AHA), to continue planning efforts to implement the reassembly phase and subsequent reuse of the building. Such plans include finalizing the selection of an appropriate County-owned site where the house could be reassembled, securing funds for the expenses associated with the reassembly phase, and determining a creative programmatic use for the building coupled with an interpretive program.
During the disassembly phase, which began in earnest in early May 2006 and concluded on June 8, 2006, County Historic Preservation Program staff and AHA Board volunteers made a concerted effort to thoroughly document as much of the process as possible. This decision to document intended to celebrate the fact that the Krowne Lustron House disassembly was one of the few County-sponsored hands-on preservation efforts to date. Project organizers also agreed that such an undertaking was unprecedented not only here in Arlington and the metropolitan region, but also could prove useful to other localities across the nation that are facing similar challenges and considering their own Lustron disassembly projects.
Arlington’s documentation effort involved writing detailed site notes throughout the disassembly work, taking photographs of each phase, and hiring a videographer to capture key project milestones (i.e., views prior to disassembly, deconstruction of the interior, removal of the exterior panels, removal of the roof trusses, removal of the wall sections, as well as interviews with the disassembly crew, County staff, and previous owners of the house). The results are comprehensive and capture each detailed phase of the project. Dismantling the thousands of house components, as monumental a task in itself, and storing the pieces for reassembly in the near future merely saved one more Lustron from the untimely fate of demolition. However, to make this overall Lustron project – from the disassembly through the reassembly and reuse of the building – truly worthwhile, all the information compiled to date must be shared and made accessible to the widest possible audience.
In order to achieve this goal, Ms. Torres is partnering with Kim O’Connell, one of the Board of Directors of the AHA, to organize the information and create a document to guide others in the disassembly and reassembly of the Lustron Houses. Ms. Torres and Ms. O'Connell have worked together closely throughout all of the planning phases for the disassembly, participated in the documentation of the disassembly thus far, and are part of the team leading the effort to reassemble and reuse the Krowne Lustron House. They recently applied for and received a grant from the Arlington Committee on Jamestown 2007 to fund the creation of two related products: 1) a booklet outlining the process and challenges of the disassembly of the Krowne Lustron House, and 2) a short video documentary featuring highlights of actual footage and interviews from the disassembly. The Arlington Committee on Jamestown 2007 unanimously voted to approve the grant request at its August meeting. The booklet and video are scheduled to be available in late-Spring 2007.
The disassembly of the Krowne Lustron House and the planned documentary booklet and companion video are unprecedented preservation accomplishments not only here in Arlington, but also in the region. The County’s Historic Preservation Program agrees that even greater benefits will result once all of the documentation has been completed and reassembly plans are finalized. The project helps to interpret a rare aspect of Arlington’s – and the nation’s - lesser-known historical and architectural legacy. The project also helps to position Arlington County as a nationwide leader in historic preservation. In addition, the documentation project will serve as an important building block for future interpretation and re-use of not only the Krowne Lustron House, but potentially other Lustrons nationwide.
Another recent development in Arlington’s Lustron-related news involves the possibility of securing federal funding for the reassembly and preservation of the Krowne Lustron House. On May 18, 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the FY 2007 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5386). This legislation featured several line-items benefiting historic preservation projects in Northern Virginia, including an allocation of $75,000 for Arlington County “to preserve one of the best remaining examples of a prefabricated porcelain steel-enameled Lustron house in the country,” spearheaded by Congressman Jim Moran. The bill currently is being reviewed by the Senate, and we will continue to monitor its progress carefully. Stay tuned for more information!
To Learn More About Lustrons
Books
Fetters, Thomas T. Lustron Homes: The History of a Postwar Prefabricated Housing Experiment. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002.
Jandl, H. Ward. Yesterday’s Houses of Tomorrow: Innovative American Homes, 1850 to 1950. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press, 1991.
Knerr, Douglas. Suburban Steel: The Magnificent Failure of the Lustron Corporation, 1945-1951. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004
Websites and Videos
http://www.arlingtonheritage.org/endangered2006.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~Strandlund/index-5.html
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/12270.shtml
http://www.wosu.org/tv/lustron/
Examples of other Lustron disassembly projects:
http://showmenews.com/2005/Nov/20051113News006.asp (Boone County, MO)
http://www.bartoncountymuseum.org/page10.html (Barton County, KS)
http://www.freewebs.com/whitehallhistoricalsociety/ourlustronhome.htm (Whitehall, OH)
WOSU.TV (Columbus, OH) and KDN Videoworks, Inc. “Lustron: The House America’s Been Waiting For.” Available to order from http://www.wosu.org/tv/lustron/.
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CONTACT US
Department of Community Planning,
Housing & Development
Neighborhood Services Division
2100 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 700
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: 703-228-3812
Fax: 703-228-3834
Please contact with the Neighborhood Services Division with any questions or comments regarding the historic preservation pages on this website.
