News
POSTWAR-ERA
ALL-STEEL HOMES STAND TEST OF TIME
Prefabricated Lustron houses are now
deemed worthy of historic preservation
By BRIAN NEARING, Staff Writer
First published: Thrusday, November 30, 2006
ALBANY - When she was a kid, way back in 1949, kids teased Nancy Danforth Norfleet about her family's new all-steel home on Jermain Street.
"They'd say that we'd need a can opener to get in," she recalled Tuesday with a laugh. "I told them that they lived in cheese boxes."
To Norfleet, nothing compares to living in a Lustron home, a design dreamed up by an Ohio businessman to provide inexpensive housing for return ing World War II veterans. The ranch homes, which are made of steel inside and out, have turned out to be almost an indestructible testimonial to a mid-20th-century vision of the future.
"Other than a little painting inside, this one has never been touched," said Norfleet, now 69 and a longtime secretary at Armory Garage, as she sat at her kitchen table. "My father saw one of these going up and he wanted it. He didn't have to do a darn thing to it."
Indeed, the main expense in the home's 57 years has been converting the furnace to natural gas. The roof, made of slabs of steel plates enameled a pale green, is as watertight as the day it went up.
Because of prefabrication, Lustrons were mass produced like an automobile and marketed through an automobile-style dealer system to individual consumers who could then erect the home on-site.
The entire structure was made up of steel framing, interior and exterior walls, roof trusses and roof tiles. The exposed steel of the walls and roof had a porcelain-enamel finish, a hard-glass that was baked onto the steel panels and roof shingles.
Color options were pink, tan, yellow, aqua, blue, green and gray for the exterior, and beige or gray inside.
New Lustrons cost between $6,000 and $10,000 at a time when a traditional wood-framed home cost about $8,000, and were shipped to building lots in 3,000 pieces on a specially designed truck. Overall, only about 2,500 were sold nationwide between 1948 and 1950, when the company folded amid production problems and delinquent government loans.
More than half the known Lustrons in New York are in the Capital Region. There are three other homes in Albany, nine in Loudonville, four in East Greenbush, four in Amsterdam, two in Ballston Spa, two in Scotia and one in Saranac Lake.
On Tuesday, the Historic Albany Foundation announced a $7,000 grant from the Preservation League of New York to identify such homes across the state as part of efforts to get residences listed on the state and national registers of historic places.
"We believe that there are 79 of the homes in the state," said Kimberly Konrad Alvarez, of Albany-based Landmark Consulting, which is doing the research for the Historic Albany Foundation. On Jermain Street, five Lustrons remain, including the one Norfleet grew up in and the one across the street that she lives in now. Three were removed to make way for Route 85.
"You tend to see these in clusters," said Alvarez. "This street is a wonderful reflection of a time when a prefabricated metal ranch house was seen as the latest and the greatest, and the perfect home for a young family that was starting a new life after World War II."
Having Lustrons listed on the National Register would make owners eligible for rehabilitation tax incentives through the new state Historic Homeowners Preservation Tax Credit program, she said.
"Lustron homes are important examples of midcentury historic resources, which have only recently reached the qualifying 50-year milestone for landmark designation," said Lorraine Weiss, program manager of technical and grant programs for the statewide Preservation League.
New York City only had one Lustron, built as a model home on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. "That one is long gone," Alvarez said.
Norfleet raised five children in the two-bedroom Lustron, whose main drawback was a floor that tended to be chilly because the heating elements were in the ceilings. "We had bunk beds and the guy on top bunk would be sweating and the guy on the bottom would be freezing," Norfleet said.
One of her daughters, Peggy, helps her mother maintain the home, which doesn't need much. "You can clean off the walls with a little Spic and Span. And then you put a little car wax on it, and it shines forever," she said.
Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.
By BRIAN NEARING, Staff Writer
First published: Thrusday, November 30, 2006
ALBANY - When she was a kid, way back in 1949, kids teased Nancy Danforth Norfleet about her family's new all-steel home on Jermain Street.
"They'd say that we'd need a can opener to get in," she recalled Tuesday with a laugh. "I told them that they lived in cheese boxes."
To Norfleet, nothing compares to living in a Lustron home, a design dreamed up by an Ohio businessman to provide inexpensive housing for return ing World War II veterans. The ranch homes, which are made of steel inside and out, have turned out to be almost an indestructible testimonial to a mid-20th-century vision of the future.
"Other than a little painting inside, this one has never been touched," said Norfleet, now 69 and a longtime secretary at Armory Garage, as she sat at her kitchen table. "My father saw one of these going up and he wanted it. He didn't have to do a darn thing to it."
Indeed, the main expense in the home's 57 years has been converting the furnace to natural gas. The roof, made of slabs of steel plates enameled a pale green, is as watertight as the day it went up.
Because of prefabrication, Lustrons were mass produced like an automobile and marketed through an automobile-style dealer system to individual consumers who could then erect the home on-site.
The entire structure was made up of steel framing, interior and exterior walls, roof trusses and roof tiles. The exposed steel of the walls and roof had a porcelain-enamel finish, a hard-glass that was baked onto the steel panels and roof shingles.
Color options were pink, tan, yellow, aqua, blue, green and gray for the exterior, and beige or gray inside.
New Lustrons cost between $6,000 and $10,000 at a time when a traditional wood-framed home cost about $8,000, and were shipped to building lots in 3,000 pieces on a specially designed truck. Overall, only about 2,500 were sold nationwide between 1948 and 1950, when the company folded amid production problems and delinquent government loans.
More than half the known Lustrons in New York are in the Capital Region. There are three other homes in Albany, nine in Loudonville, four in East Greenbush, four in Amsterdam, two in Ballston Spa, two in Scotia and one in Saranac Lake.
On Tuesday, the Historic Albany Foundation announced a $7,000 grant from the Preservation League of New York to identify such homes across the state as part of efforts to get residences listed on the state and national registers of historic places.
"We believe that there are 79 of the homes in the state," said Kimberly Konrad Alvarez, of Albany-based Landmark Consulting, which is doing the research for the Historic Albany Foundation. On Jermain Street, five Lustrons remain, including the one Norfleet grew up in and the one across the street that she lives in now. Three were removed to make way for Route 85.
"You tend to see these in clusters," said Alvarez. "This street is a wonderful reflection of a time when a prefabricated metal ranch house was seen as the latest and the greatest, and the perfect home for a young family that was starting a new life after World War II."
Having Lustrons listed on the National Register would make owners eligible for rehabilitation tax incentives through the new state Historic Homeowners Preservation Tax Credit program, she said.
"Lustron homes are important examples of midcentury historic resources, which have only recently reached the qualifying 50-year milestone for landmark designation," said Lorraine Weiss, program manager of technical and grant programs for the statewide Preservation League.
New York City only had one Lustron, built as a model home on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. "That one is long gone," Alvarez said.
Norfleet raised five children in the two-bedroom Lustron, whose main drawback was a floor that tended to be chilly because the heating elements were in the ceilings. "We had bunk beds and the guy on top bunk would be sweating and the guy on the bottom would be freezing," Norfleet said.
One of her daughters, Peggy, helps her mother maintain the home, which doesn't need much. "You can clean off the walls with a little Spic and Span. And then you put a little car wax on it, and it shines forever," she said.
Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.
and
Architectural Parts Warehouse
89 Lexington Avenue
Albany, NY 12206
518/465-0876
www.historic-albany.org