If you’re driving down the highway, on the outskirts of Dallas, you might see something that could convince you that aliens have landed. The flying saucer-shaped building near Royse City is actually a Futuro House, which is a prefabricated house designed by Finland native Matti Suuronen in 1968.
Futuro Houses were in production until 1973 when the oil crisis caused the halt in the production of these futuristic houses. One of the appeals of the Futuro Houses was that the homes could be broken down into 16 individual pieces and bolted together wherever the owner wanted, from a snowy mountainside to a sunny beach.
A Real-Life ‘Jetson’ House
Photo: Flickr/Steve Rainwater
Interesting-looking as they are, the Futuro House craze never gathered much steam in the United States. Due to the short amount of time on the market and a horrible market campaign, there were only about 100 Futuro Houses produced. The houses were made from fiberglass reinforced polyester plastic that Suuronen had used in past projects. The Futuro was designed in a way that was easy to transport and could easily be assembled on site in two days. Or if you had the money, you could have it assembled at the airfield and it could be airlifted to a hard-to-reach location. All you needed was four concrete piers and you could place this house almost anywhere. Another advantage to the Futuro houses was that since the house used an integrated polyurethane insulation and electric heating system, the house could be heated and cooled in thirty minutes.
Futuro Houses Never Took Off in the U.S.
Photo: Flickr/Steve Rainwater
However, it seems as though the futuristic design was just too much for most people’s palates and the idea crashed and burned. In the United States, Futuro Houses were banned from many municipalities by zoning regulations. Banks were reluctant to finance them. Some were vandalized. Some customers who committed to buy them backed out and forfeited their non-refundable $1,000 deposits.
Today, there is a small group of fans who keep track of these houses and have recorded that there are less than fifty of them left around the world (word on the street is that Texas is home to three remaining Futuro Houses). To see a complete listing of where all of the remaining Futuro Houses are, go to www.thefuturohouse.com.
