I’d heard rumors of a Lustron house in Hagerstown, Indiana, for a couple of years, but nothing ever came from them. I drove around town with my mom once trying to find it, and revisited the area a few times on my own. Finally, someone from a Facebook group I’m in set me straight! I had no choice but to find the place posthaste.
Lustron houses were among America’s earliest experiments in modular housing. Built entirely from enameled steel panels, they were the brainchild of Swedish-born inventor Carl Strandlund and the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Products Company. Hoping to meet the enormous demand for housing after World War II, the company marketed Lustron homes to returning veterans eager for a place in the growing suburbs. The houses arrived by truck, got assembled on concrete slabs, and contained more than 3,300 individual components1.
Lustron homes were available in four pastel colors -Surf Blue, Maize Yellow, Dove Gray, and Desert Tan- and four models: the Westchester, Westchester Deluxe, Newport, and Meadowbrook2. Most of the twenty-five or so examples I’ve encountered around here have been two-bedroom Westchester Deluxe models. Despite their modest size of 956 square feet, they were packed with features, including seven closets, pocket doors, and built-in steel bookcases, china cabinets, and vanities3. Since everything was steel, owners could hang pictures with magnets instead of nails. They could clean the entire house with a hose before polishing it with carnauba wax!
Lustrons seemed poised to revolutionize American housing, but the dream unraveled almost as quickly as it began. By the time Lustron declared bankruptcy in 1950, only about five percent of the 45,000 houses Carl Strandlund had pledged to build had actually been delivered. Rising material costs4 and fierce opposition from the traditional building industry5 all helped doom the venture. What was intended to become the future of American homebuilding instead became a fascinating footnote in it.
Finding any information about Hagerstown’s Lustron house was challenging. For starters, the Wayne County Assessor says the home dates to 19566– six years after the company went bankrupt! I managed to find a 1953 real estate listing in the local paper7, but I bet it was built between 1949 and 1950 since that’s when the ones nearby in Cambridge City, Richmond, and Straughn were assembled8.
I can tell the home is another Westchester Deluxe model thanks to its fenestration, but I have no idea what its original color was since the house had been sided over. That’s not uncommon, but you really have to squint to tell this was a Lustron: in addition to the siding, the roof’s been replaced, the porch has been filled in, and a garage has been added. Oh well! None of that matters to me. Ship of Theseus? Who cares? I still found another Lustron!
Sources Cited
1 Davis, R. (1993, March 7). Some Lustrous ‘dream homes’ remain intact. The Muncie Star. p. 3.
2 Boyd, M.A. (2001). Preserving the Lustron House: Authenticity and Industrial Production. Master’s Thesis. Columbia University [New York].
3 Heuchert, E. (n.d.). Lustron Homes. Minneapolis Historical [Minneapolis]. Web. Retrieved March 13, 2024.
4 Martinez Euklidiadas, M. (2023, April 4). Lustron, The Failed Initiative To Create Prefabricated Homes Made Entirely From Steel. Tomorrow City. Web. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
5 Reiss, R. (1978, July 23). When Lustron Lost its Luster. The Columbus Dispatch.
6 Parcel 89-05-24-100-112.000-020 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Wayne County [Richmond]. Web. Retrieved June 6, 2026.
7 Real Estate For Sale (1953, April 21). The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 14.
8 Henry County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2024). Parcel ID: 028-03317-00. Henry County, Indiana Assessor. map, New Castle, IN.
