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LOVE THOSELUSTRONS

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During their short tenure, they offered the

allure of “luster on steel”: small, sturdy,

modern homes that answered the American

Dream for young families during post-

World War II.

They were not much larger than the three-car

garages of some new homes today. They were a

challenge to decorate. But in the years immedi-

ately following World War II, when an increasing

number of young families created a high demand

for single-family housing, Lustron Homes fulfilled the American

Dream of home ownership for several thousand buyers nation-

wide. Packed with space-saving, low-maintenance features, Lus-

tron Homes have continued to attract buyers—although not the

young families to whom they were originally marketed.

The porcelain-enameled, all-metal Lustron house (whose name

derived from “luster on steel”) was the brainchild of Carl Strand-

lund, a Chicago engineer with experience in the manufacture of

prefabricated steel buildings for use as White Castle restaurants

and Standard Oil gas stations. Could these steel buildings, Strand-

lund wondered, be designed as houses for the many young cou-

ples looking for starter homes in the newly recovering economy?

After all, in the years immediately following World War II, housing

by Christy Davis

Lustron Homes were available in a limited number of colors, including Desert Tan, Surf Blue,and Maize Yellow, as well as Dove Gray, shown in this model at 315 West Fifth, Holton.A for-mer owner of this residence described it as a “showpiece” that attracted wide attention fromthe community.The Chicago-style picture windows original to this unit have been replaced bymodern, double-hung windows.

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was sparse and

people were for-

tunate to have

homes of their

own. In 1947

some six million

families were

sharing homes with friendsor relatives. Otherslived in huts, base-ments, or sheds.

Strandlundpitched his idea tothe federal Recon-struction FinanceCorporation (RFC),which respondedpositively andagreed to back himfinancially. So,armed with a gov-ernment loan andfloor plans by archi-tects Morris Beck-man and Roy Blass,Strandlund em-barked on a quest toresolve the nation’spost-war housingshortage. In an air-plane factory inColumbus, Ohio,Strandlund’s LustronCorporation turnedout twenty-five hundred of these unique homes dur-ing its tenure that began in 1947. The Lustron, alongwith other small mass-produced homes, helped fillthe urgent demand in post-war America for inexpen-sive single-family homes.

Lustrons were designed for assembly-line produc-

tion similar to thatused in making auto-mobiles and aircraft.In the Columbusplant, steel windows,interior and exteriorenameled steel pan-els, steel trusses, in-terior steel cabinets,and built-ins weremass-produced andbundled for ship-ping. Although theaverage LustronHome offered only1,093 to 1,217square feet—abouthalf the size oftoday’s newhomes—it com-pared favorably insize with convention-al new homes of thepost-war era. TheLustron Corporationsold its shiny homesin much the sameway Chevrolet andFord sold their cars:through dealershipsscattered all over thenation. Also likecars, Lustrons wererecognized by modelnames such as Es-quire, Westchester,and Newport, andthey came in a limit-ed number of colors:Dove Gray, Desert

Tan, Surf Blue, and Maize Yellow. The steel elementsmade the homes virtually maintenance free, a bene-fit the company touted in its marketing literature.Early models offered two bedrooms in the five-roomlayout, but three-bedroom styles later were added.

To a generation accustomed to conserving resources during the Great Depressionand World War II, these small homes were for many a dream come true.

(ABOVE) Built-in cabinets and drawers divide the dining area from thekitchen in this two-bedroom home.The Maize Yellow, baked enamel exteri-or of this Westchester Deluxe model at 2315 C Avenue,Wilson, has suc-cessfully withstood the elements since it was constructed in about 1950.(RIGHT) Advertisement for Lustron Homes in the September 25, 1948, Sat-urday Evening Post. Such ads proclaimed,“If you make $50 to $60 a week,you can buy a Lustron Home—a better home than you probably everdreamed you could own.”

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(ABOVE) Lustron owners sometimes attached frame garages to enhance their homes.Although bushes did well along the sides ofthese homes, such as this one at 214 Park Street, Smith Center, the heat radiating from the metal outer panels sometimes provedfatal to flowers. Desert Tan was the color selected for this Westchester Deluxe model. (BELOW) This longtime Emporia resident, at617 Lincoln, is one of many Lustrons eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.To date, Kansas has fifteen such homeslisted on the National Register.

By 1950 Kansas boasted eight Lustron dealers. Strandlund marketed his homes to youngmiddle-class families who represented the middle third of the housing market.

To a generationaccustomed to con-serving resourcesduring the Great De-pression and WorldWar II, these smallhomes were formany a dream cometrue. Each Lustronmodel came with ra-diant panel heatingin the ceiling thatforced heated airdownward ratherthan through airducts. Also standardin each unit wereLustron-built cabi-nets, a kitchen sink,basic bathroom ap-pliances, and a waterheater. For conve-nience with house-hold duties some ofthe more expensivemodels included aclothes dryer and asink unit that servedas both a dishwasherand a washing ma-chine for clothes.Garbage disposalswere optional.

B y 1950Kansas boasted eight Lustron dealers, includ-ing Brack Implements in Great Bend, which

sold thirty-five homes in a fifteen-month period. Anexperienced four-man crew could assemble a Lus-tron Home in a week. The early units sold from thefactory at between four thousand and seventy-fivehundred dollars but often cost the buyers severalthousand more, depending on how far the homeshad to be shipped. Too, new owners were responsi-ble for the cost of the property, the cement founda-

tion on which thehome would bebuilt, constructionfees, and basic insu-lation, wiring, andplumbing. Com-pared with then-current averagenew housing costsof between six andseven thousand dol-lars, Lustrons couldbe prohibitively ex-pensive in someareas.

Strandlundmarketed hishomes to youngmiddle-class fami-lies who represent-ed the middle thirdof the housing mar-ket. One of theseKansas families wasJohn and AgnesStradal, who movedto WaKeeney in1945 to raise theirtwo children and in1949 constructed aLustron at 409North ThirteenthStreet. When SmithCenter residentsJames and Grace

Martyn built their Lustron home at 216 Park, theyhad been married six years and were expectingtheir second child. Soon after the Martyns builttheir home, their friends Robert and FrancesGrimes built a Lustron next door.

For the most part, the homes lived up to thecompany’s maintenance-free promise. Lustrons hadno wood clapboards to paint, no conventional shin-gles to replace, and no plaster walls to patch. Theoriginal roofs proved over time to be, in the words

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This floor plan shows the Esquire model built in Hinsdale, Illinois.The Es-quire was one of several styles available for purchase by lucky homeownersin the post-war period.

Early units sold from the factory at between four thousand and seventy-five hundred dollarsbut often cost several thousand more, depending on how far the homes were shipped.

tures. The built-inswere a selling pointfor new home buy-ers George and Pa-tricia Holland, whohad little furniturewhen they pur-chased a Lustron inGreat Bend in theearly 1950s.

First-timehomeowners likethe Hollands foundtheir home’s easyupkeep an attrac-tive feature. Mar-garet Stein, whowith her husband,Cletus, reared sixchildren in a Lus-tron in Ashland,noted that the man-ufactured home was“a most practicaland comfortablehome to live in.[The] thick insula-tion . . . [provided]a shield againstcold, heat and out-side noise. . . .There was no con-densation and theheating was adream. . . . We allloved and enjoyedliving in it.”

Although theearly homeownersrarely found seriousfault with their Lus-trons, they shared

the same few criticisms. Among them was that thehigh-tech Lustrons were difficult to decorate. Manyowners felt the soft edges of traditional furnishings

of Larned Lustronowner Joanne Reep,“indestructible.”Panels were suffi-ciently thick to avoiddenting, even instrong hail, and themetal panels meantno rodents or ter-mites. Periodicmaintenance of theexterior steel panelsconsisted of washingthe enameled sur-faces and buffing ona protective layer ofauto wax. Ownersdevised creative so-lutions to repairdamage caused bymishaps. When thehome of Donald andJoanne Reep wasburned in a kitchenfire, they removedthe damaged panelsand delivered themto an auto body shopfor restoration.

Lustrons had an-other major advan-tage over most of thesmall homes con-structed in the post-war era: storagespace. Built-in book-shelves, cabinets,dressers, and closetshelped mitigate thehomes’ small sizes.In reducing the ne-cessity of moveablefurniture, these built-ins also allowed owners toavoid some of the challenges of furnishing theirhomes tastefully around the sterile architectural fea-

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Built-in bookshelves, cabinets, dressers, and closets helped mitigate the homes’small sizes.These features were a selling point for many new home buyers.

(ABOVE LEFT) The bathroom of the home at 310 East Twentieth Street, Hays,shows the standard fixtures provided with these prefabricated metal homes.(ABOVE RIGHT) Most of the rooms, such as the bedroom in this photo, in theLustron at 216 Park Street, Smith Center, are Dove Gray, while the kitchenand bathroom are Maize Yellow. (ABOVE) One of seventeen extant Lustronsin Great Bend, this home at 2601 Paseo was built in 1949 in the new Ha-cienda Addition at the north edge of town.

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did not harmonizewith the clean linesof the steel panels.Once owners decid-ed on a decorativestyle, they oftenfound it difficult toachieve. To theirchagrin, they foundthey could notmount pictureslarger than thosethat could be sus-pended with mag-nets. Also, a num-ber of owners,including PatriciaHolland of GreatBend and the Mar-tyns of Smith Cen-ter, found the com-bination clothes/dishwasher incon-venient. Clothesand dishes couldnot be washed simultaneously—and the appliancecould not be used to store dirty dishes betweenwashes. Grace Martyn resorted to washing dishes byhand until she could purchase a conventional wash-er and dryer. Some owners also bemoaned that thehomes collected dust, possibly due to static electric-ity or that dust simply was more visible on thehomes’ smooth surfaces than on traditional buildingmaterials.

Like original Lustron owners, current Newtonhomeowner Cathy Buss was more attracted to theLustron home as a novelty than for its efficiency.Still, she misses some of the features found in tradi-tional homes, including woodwork. Buss collectsmagnets, but she still wishes she could more easilymount decorative pictures. Additionally, she is cau-tious about what she plants near the house becausethe heat reflecting off the metal panels dries out herflower beds.

CHRISTY DAVIS is the assistant director of the Society’s CulturalResources Division. She has a longtime interest in LustronHomes and is available for speaking engagements on the topic(785-272-8681, ext. 215).

Although the Lustron had been marketed as the “home of the future,” the housing trends thatfollowed the post-war era starkly contrasted with these small, neat, efficient metal homes.

A lthough theLustronCorporation

enjoyed a modicumof success during itsbrief run, ultimatelythe very RFC loansthat had bankrolledthe company’s earlyefforts also came tobe its downfall. Dur-ing the summer of1949 Strandlund’s$37.5 million inoutstanding debtcaught the attentionof Time magazineand of U.S. repre-sentative from OhioFrederick Smith, amember of theHouse Banking andCurrency Commit-tee. Illness laterthat year forced

Smith to hand the probe over to Representative Al-bert Cole of Kansas, who by October was calling foran investigation into Lustron’s alleged mismanage-ment of its several government loans. Media criti-cism of Lustron continued for the last few monthsof the year, and on December 28, 1949, the RFCterminated its loans to the company, effectivelyputting the Lustron Corporation out of business in1950.

Ironically, although the Lustron had been mar-keted as the “home of the future,” the housingtrends that followed the post-war era starkly con-trasted with these small, neat, efficient metalhomes. By the 1950s building materials had become

This detail from a Lustron advertisement in the October 23, 1948, SaturdayEvening Post showcases the luxury and comfort of the built-in dressing table,closet, and overhead cabinets available in the bedrooms. According to thead,“The Lustron Home is the result of American industrial and engineering‘know-how’ applied for the first time to home building.”

KH

more accessible and housing was more easily attain-able. With the Great Depression behind them andpost-war housing shortages met, American familiesturned their sights toward large sprawling ranchhouses and have since grown accustomed to signifi-cantly more living space as new homes havereached an average size of seventeen hundredsquare feet. Because they are small in comparisonwith the average new home, Lustrons now are lesslikely to be occupied by the young families withchildren to whom Strandlund originally marketedthem. Current buyers more commonly are singleadults or couples without children. Cathy Bussshares one of the ninety-two remaining Kansas Lus-trons with her daughter. “I cannot imagine havingmore than two people living in the house,” she says.

Of the Kansas Lustrons, fifteen have beenplaced on the National Register of Historic Placesand twenty-eight more are eligible for listing. Lus-trons are dotted across our state in towns from Abi-lene to WaKeeney; the greatest known numberstand in Great Bend. Although the halcyon days ofthe Lustron have come and gone, it is likely thesesturdy, unique little buildings will remain a part ofour neighborhoods for many years to come.

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