The House of Tomorrow has a problem of today–a leaky roof.
And the Florida Tropical House may soon find itself in the drink.
Life over 50 is hard on any house, let alone ones that were built as experimental demonstration models for a gala affair meant to lift a nation`s spirits out of the Great Depression. So it should not be surprising that the five famous World`s Fair houses, now located in Beverly Shores, Ind., are showing their age.
The houses were part of a Street of Tomorrow exhibit at the Century of Progress, the name given the 1933-34 World`s Fair held along Chicago`s lakeshore. When the fair concluded, real estate developer Robert Bartlett bought the houses and floated them across Lake Michigan to Beverly Shores in hopes of attracting customers to his flagging community.
Bartlett had hoped to make the shoreline a resort playground for the wealthy South Siders of Chicago. While he was successful in part, the Depression put a crimp in the growth of the town that began in 1927 with just one permanent resident.
Although the World`s Fair houses–and about a dozen other architecturally notable buildings that were also barged over–brought a curiosity-seeker kind of attention to Beverly Shores, the town never fulfilled Bartlett`s expectations. Today only about 800 residents call the community their permanent home.
Still, many thousands of tourists stream through the area in summertime and the beaches are popular as well. The Century of Progress houses remain oddities; at least one or two groups who pass through the park service`s visitor center in Beverly Shores each day inquire about the structures.
”I don`t think the houses are what you`d call a tourist attraction that just draw people to them,” said Dale Engquist, superintendent of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. ”There are a number of people who know about the houses and who will drive by and look, but that is about the extent of it. The town has held an open house with the owners in conjunction with some holidays and people could tour them. But, for the most part, they are not really well known.”
The National Park Service purchased the homes 15 years ago when the unique national lakeshore park, which lies about 50 miles southeast of Chicago, was created. Nearly two-thirds of Beverly Shores was incorporated into the park, and when the World`s Fair houses were swallowed up, their occupants were given ”reservations of use” that now have about 8 to 10 years remaining on them.
The reservations of use allow the tenants to live in the dwelling for a specified amount of time. Although they hold no title to the property, residents still must pay property taxes and upkeep.
”We bought the house because it was right on the lake and it just happened to be a historic house,” said Elizabeth Scriba, who with her husband Robert own the Florida Tropical house. The retired couple maintains a home in Joliet but spends as much time as possible in Beverly Shores.
”There have been many people out over the years to take a look at it,”
she said. ”Every once in a while there`ll be a busload of students that stops out front, and the professor will begin his discourse on the architecture. I usually walk out and ask them if they`d like to come inside. We`ve figured, too, that the house is very interesting to go through.”
And while the Florida house has been well maintained by the Scribas, constant erosion that is evident all along the Indiana Dunes beach is threatening to drag the house into Lake Michigan. One other house, owned outright by the park service and once used for its science division, had to be abandoned because of the erosion.
”We`d spend even more time out here if I didn`t think Lake Michigan was going to come into the bed,” Scriba said. ”It`s really foolish for the government to spend millions of dollars for a beautiful beach and then let it go to pot like this.
”We`re really undecided what to do with the house now. We`d sell (the reservation of use) to someone who`d say they would go ahead and fix it, but how are they going to put money into it if they don`t own it? We`ve owned this house for 25 years. But it`s about time we gave up.”
While erosion is the most serious, other problems of aging are plaguing the Century of Progress houses. Leaky roofs, cracked foundations and crumbling exteriors are just a few.
The trouble is amplified because the occupants have little incentive to invest thousands of dollars in costly repairs to homes they must vacant in a decade. And the park service, despite searching for funds, hasn`t been able to help.
”With all of the houses our first desire is to work toward their preservation,” Engquist said. ”The long-range plan is to have them remain as exhibition homes or as some other alternative use.”
”But these houses were designed to be exhibits and not dwelling units forever,” he said. ”They had to be constructed or replaced on foundations here that produced flaws which make them a little more difficult to maintain.”
Engquist said the service was studying the possibility of moving its house off the beach, as well as ways to halt the damaging affects of the erosion. The park service has had talks with a private foundation about helping with the cost of moving or renovating the other houses, too.
”Their real significance is that they are examples of varying types of architecture that was experimental for its day,” he said. ”They were part of an architecture exhibit at the fair and they are special because of those historic qualities.”
All five houses have been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places by the park service, though they have not yet been designated as landmarks. In addition, three other Beverly Shores houses, called Lustron Houses, have been nominated.
Of the five World`s Fair houses, one is vacant and owned outright by the National Park Service; four are owned by the park service but occupied by private citizens. The five, described in a publication on the Indiana Dunes by the Shirley Heinze Environmental Fund, are:
— The Rostone House. Designed by architect Walter Scholer of Lafayette, Ind., Rostone is a synthetic building material chemically transformed from powdered limestone and shale chips into large blocks. The Rostone Company held the trademark on the process, which it called the stone equivalent of plywood. Except for a small piece, the house was later covered with another synthetic material–Permastone. The park service`s science division was housed there before erosion threatened the structure. It is currently vacant.
— The Armco-Ferro Enamel House. Designed by Cleveland architect Robert Smith Jr. for the American Rolling Mill Co. and the Ferro Enamel Corporation, the Armco-Ferro house was supposed to demonstrate that even Depression-era families on tight budgets could afford the latest in technology. The house was in the Bauhaus architectural mode of simplicity, a frameless, seven-room structure built with sheet-metal walls and an exterior finish of enamel baked on iron.
— The House of Tomorrow. Designed by Chicago architects George and William Keck, the 12-sided building was the marvel of the fair. The three floors of the house, built around a central steel frame, are tiered like a wedding cake, each floor a smaller diameter than the one beneath, with floor- to-ceiling glass windows. Originally, the house had two garages on the lower level, one for the car and one for the airplane that designers at the fair expected everyone to eventually own.
— The Florida Tropical House. Along with the Rostone house, the only other of the World`s Fair houses that sits right on the lakeshore. It, too, is threatened by the beach erosion along the dunes. The house was designed by architect Robert Law Weed of Miami, who built a two-story living room with overhanging balcony, several open terraces and the forerunner of the classic picture window. The bright pink exterior has been used as a landmark by boaters on Lake Michigan.
— The Cypress House. Hidden from Lake Front Drive by a stand of trees, this house was constructed for the fair by the Southern Cypress Manufacturers, a trade group which designed the home to showcase the uses cypress could be put to in the building world.
The three Lustron houses were constructed using an experimental technique employing porcelain steel as the chief building material. The houses have been equated to living in a giant washing machine.
About a dozen other buildings were floated across from Chicago after the World`s Fair homes came ashore. Almost all have since been demolished, although the Old North Church near what could be called the center of Beverly Shores still exists.
