The Lustron Home: A brief history.

I passed by this house a half dozen times growing up. Only recently after I got interested in houses from around 1930-70 did I realize just what house this was: A LUSTRON! I Google Maps'd the hell out of this one, finally got lucky after a long night of walking down country roads. It's not listed on the historic places registry like many other Lustron, it's pretty well forgotten I'd say.

Lustron Homes were kit houses made of ceramic-coated steel that came on a truck and you assembled as a kit. They were the brainchild of a Columbus, Ohio entrepreneur, so there are quite a few sprinkled through the midwest. Sadly the bubble burst with rising costs, despite the durability and innovation of them, so from 1948-50 just shy of 3,000 ever rolled out of the factory. You might recognize them as the houses from Fallout...

Slight modifications for the game, but the wainscotting and the tile plus modernized kitchen are pretty bang-on.

An entire home by parts.

There's a perfect model Lustron at the Ohio Historical Museum you can go through. With metal walls though, you better have some powerful magnets to hang photos, though it made clean-up as simple as a wipe-down. Many Lustron homes very rarely needed to have their roofs redone, in fact quite a number have had nary a repair for over 50 years compared to modern roofs.

Wainscotting on the walls made it a little homier, and they came in a few basic color choices. Sadly though they were not great on heating. In an effort to be revolutionary, the designer dreamed up radiant heating from the ceiling, and as a consequence, Lustrons suffer cold floors and strange random hotspots.

The kitchens were pretty revolutionary. The washing machine had a special rack you could put in to convert it into a dishwasher: an absolute luxurious find in 1948!

The homes came with several built-in shelf options and really helped families save space on furniture. If you want to read more there's so many great blogs about them. Despite fewer than 2,000 probably still in tact, there are still these hidden gems tucked away and sometimes up for sale.

Here's a great blog with more info on them
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/architecture-and-design/lustron-homes-part-1.shtml

This one has more detail about how it went sour:
https://savingplaces.org/stories/lustrons-building-an-american-dream-house