THE
LUSTRON
HOME

a new standard for living

A foreword by Carl G. Strandlund, President, Lustron Corporation

Carl G. Strandlund
Builder

This booklet contains a preview of America's first truly low-cost mass-produced home.

It is built in a factory by the same mass-production, unit-assembly and precision methods that have made the motor car the greatest industrial achievement and economic benefit of the century.

It is assemble on the site by a local builder-dealer, under factory-trained supervision, with local labor.

It will bring to you and your family what we call "a new standard for living" - a home that is easier to live in, easier to keep clean - a home of cheerful convenience and permanence beyond anything previously known in dwelling construction.

Plant Now Rolling

After three years of experimentation and initial struggles, we are now a going concern.

Our big plant in Columbus, Ohio, has more floor space - enough for 22 football fields - enough for the production of 40,000 homes annually.

Our Lustron school is traing all factory supervisors and builder-dealers in the special techniques required.

Arrangements are being made for the negotiation of mortgage loans by individual buyers with a minimum of confusion, paper work, and red tape.

Basic Principles

Two things especially I want to make clear.

1. The Lustron Home is not to be confused in any way with prefabricated houses as they have been known in the past. It offers basic advantages, modern conveniences and permanence not to be found in any other house at any price.

2. While we will help relieve the housing shortage, this is not an "emergency" or "stopgap" project, but is planned on the long-range basis of complete customer pride and satisfaction and as a new contribution to the art of living

As soon as a Lustron Home is put on display in your community, I hope you and your family will visit it and really get the feel of it.

If you choose to buy a Lustron Home, I wish you many years of happiness within its walls.

CARL G. STRANDLUND, President
LUSTRON CORPORATION

Threshold to better living - the doorway of the Lustron Home

Lustron gives a man a home he can own...and it's the kind of house he wants!

Nearly every American has the deep-down desire to own his own home...to put down roots and establish himself and his family as part of the life of the community.

For all too many, this desire seemed destined to remain a beautiful dream - until the Lustron Home made it an easily acomplished reality.

Modern engineering "know-how" has made it possible. Now, a "home of your own" - at low first cost and even lower upkeep cost - is within the reach of the average family.

As you can see from the picture above, Lustron's architects have followed a growing trend in designing a conservative-modern ranch-style home. exterior lines are smooth and low, blending with the site and making it easy to landscape attractively with trees and shrubbery.

Big picture windows provide focal points of interest from the outside. You have your choice of exterior color combinations - all in non-glossy porcelain enameled steel which will never weather or stain, never need repainting, redecorating, or reroofing.

The Lustron Home is decay-proof, verminproof, rustproof, termite-proof. The construction itself acts as protection against lightning. The porcelain enamel, fused to steel at high temperatures, will take a hard blow without chipping or marking, will never fade, crack or peel. And the design and color will be as pleasing to your grandchildren as they are to you today.

Second bedroom features privacy, ample wall space, and large double closet with sliding doors.

Lets look at the floor plan of the home for a moment before we step inside. You can see why there is a feeling of open spaciousness to the Lustron Home - the plan is arranged to give the maximum possible living space in rooms of mor than conventional size.

Floor plan shows arrangement of five spacious rooms, plus large utility room - more than 1000 square feet of floor space.

Only the bedrooms and bath are enclosed with doors, and many of the partitions are working walls, which earn their share of the floor space by providing built-in conveniences, storage space and closets. Every room has cross ventilation.

Now step into the bright colorful living room. That pleasing effect of open light and open space comes from the big picture window. Built-in shelves provide space for books or growing plants.

Colorful bathroom comes complete with all fixtures. All hot and cold water plumbing pipes are copper.

Ample wall space means flexible arrangement for your furniture. Convenient electric outlets let you put lamps where you want them, without long extension cords. And here again you have a choice of colors, in combination with the other rooms of the house, chosen by leading decorators and color experts for the most desired and most livable tones in color harmony.

Dining space seen from living room, shows spaciousness of room arrangement. Note big widow, built-in cabinet.

Big picture window, built-in bookshelves feature spacious living room. Basic colors throughout the house harmonize with your own decorating "scheme." You get the beauty of porcelain combined with the strength and permanence of steel.

The dining area opens off the living room. Here is another picture window and built-in feature - a display cabinet for your china, with storage space for an ample supply of table linen. A "pass through" counter is provided to the big built-in work counter in the kitchen.

The kitchen is just an easy work-saving step from the dining space, and the kitchen itself is designed in a "working corridor" to save steps. Appliances and cabinets are arranged for greatest efficiency.

And in every Lustron kitchen - a part of the Lustron "package" at no extra cost - is a combination dishwasher-clotheswasher of the latest type. It not only cuts your dishwashing time to a few minutes a meal, but it also converts quickly and easily to wash, rinse, and damp dry the family laundry on "washday."

Next, the utility room, where an automatic water heater keeps company with the fully automatic heating unit - both furnished with the house. You'll notice at once that the furnace is located at the ceiling of the room, occupying no floor area. This efficient heating unit is also the key to Lustron's remarkable system of radiant panel heating, described in detail on page 7.

At the other side of the house are the two bedrooms and the bath.

The master bedroom, large enough for twin beds, also offers a built-in feature which eliminates the necessity for the conventional dresser and chest of drawers.

A built-in vanity is surrounded by drawers, cabinets and closets. A big mirror (21 sq. ft.) comes as part of the house. Sliding doors on the big closet (pictured below) increase accessibilty; doors move so easily that a child can open them.

A similar built-in closet with shelves for linens is one wall of the hall to the second bedroom. This bedroom, which will also take twin beds, features privacy and ample wall space, yet gives you the big window and the big closet area that characterize the Lustron design.

Built-in cabinet in dining space gives display for your best china, ample linen storage, and "pas through" counter space from kitchen. Drawers for silver are under the counter.

There is still another big closet (and again with sliding doors) at the entrance to the bathroom - and the bathroom itself is compact and complete, including combination tub and shower bath, medicine cabinet, linen cabinet, and tubular incandescent lighting fixture.

Kitchen side of "pass through" shows big work counter with convenient electric outlet, big built-in cabinets. And how easy a porcelain enameled steel kitchen is to keep clean!

Plenty of room for linens is supplied by hall linen closet. Note sliding doors on the big bedroom closet - All the floor space in the house is living space. Note also the overhead cabinets.

Now picture yourself living in this "home of cheerful convenience." Light. Color. Radiant panel heating, eliminating radiators and grilles. Twice the storage space of a comparable conventional house. Your only cleaning materials are soap, water, and a damp cloth. And you get your Lustron Home complete - all you need to buy is your own cooking stove, refrigerator, and, of course, your own home furnishings.

Do you wonder that we call it "a new standard for living?"

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon proper and becoming dwellings depends more than anything else the improvement of mankind. Such dwellings are the nursery of all domestic virtues, and without a becoming home the exercise of those virtues is impossible.
-BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1874.

New dishwasher-clotheswasher, kitchen cabinets, exhaust fan, lighting fixtures are among features included. Stove and refrigerator are not included, but standard makes fit floor space.

Built-in dressing table in master bedroom comes complete with mirror. Drawers are built in below the table, closets on either side, cupboards above. You don't even need a chest of drawers.

Efficient radiant heating ends your heating worries

The most modern method of home heating is through radiant heating - a Lustron's radiant panel system is the most modern application of the method.

From an automatic heating unit in the utility room, warm air is circulated through a chamber over the entire ceiling. Thus each ceiling panel becomes a source of smooth, even heat, sending warm rays of heat downward into each room.

These rays of heat have been compared to the sun's infrared rays in even, thorough distribution of warmth. Since they are actual heat rays, there is no movement of heated air rising upward in each room. Therefore there are no definite moving currents of heated air to carry dust and dirt through the house. radiators and grilles are also eliminated.

The house is completely insulated with permanent fireproof insulating material. Circulation of a small amount of heat in the walls eliminates condensation. Complete wall and ceiling insulation naturally makes for greater comfort at all seasons and goes far in soundproofing the house.

Tested in two years of severe Chicago winters under actual living conditions, Lustron's radiant panel heating system is simple, efficient, and extremely economical. It is completely automatic in operation - all you have to do is set the thermostat. Because of the special panel system, temperatures can be raised and lowered in far less time and more accurately controlled.

You are more comfortable - in winter and in summer - when you own a Lustron Home.

Automatic water heater and fully automatic heating unit are included with home. Note location of furnace at ceiling of utility room for greater usable floor area . . .ideal home workshop.

Anchor bolts fasten factory-welded steel wall sections securely and permanently to concrete slab.

Porcelain enameled steel exterior panels interlock with each other and are securely fastened to frame members.

Interior panels conceal insulation and conduits.

Ceiling panels become the radiant heating surface.

Why we can build so many - and erect them in three days each

American engineering "know how," which has given you the benefits of the modern automobile and a wide range of electrical and mechanical home appliances at low cost, has now been applied to home building for the first time. These illustrations show the simple efficiency that makes it possible to build the Lustron Home in volume.

One of the most envied features of the Lustron Home is the spandril wall construction. Widely used for towering office buildings - a new 53-story skyscraper now being erected in New York uses this method - spandril wall construction means far greater strength without the necessity of bearing walls of heavy material.

Skeleton of the house is made up of steel framing, factory-welded into wall sections and roof trusses. Interlocking porcelain enameled steel panels finish the inside and outside walls and roof. All exterior panels are insulated with 1 1/2 inches of permanent fireproof material. interlocking with each other on adjacent sides, they are secured to the wall sections with a mnimum number of concealed screws. Compressed between the panels, a permanent plastic sealing strip forms a gasket and asures an airtight and weather-tight enclosure.

The only non-steel items in the house are the concrete floor slab, its asphalt tile finish, and aluminum windows. For this reason, practically the entire house will be shipped as a package to local builder-dealers who finish the job with their own labor crews in three days, after the concrete slab is completed to putting the key in the front door.

Lustron's all-steel construction provides more durability and strength than conventional 2 by 4 studs on 16-inch centers. The Lustron Home is completely termite-proof, rat-proof, verminproof, decay-proof. It never needs repainting, redecorating, or reroofing. Over the years, this saving in maintenance expense means better, safer living and a substantial cash savings to owners of the Lustron Home.

Lustron panels, after porcelain enameling, move on continuous conveyor lines through drying ovens prior to the fusing operation.

Some things you'll want to know about
Lustron's Porcelain Enamel

Porcelain enamel forms such an important part of the Lustron Home that you naturally want to know more about it . . . what it is . . . how it is made . . . its strength, its durability and so on.

Defined in the simplest terms, porcelain enamel is a layer of glass fused or welded onto a metal base. The resulting product has all of the strength of metal plus the hardness and permanence of glass. It is not like paint or brushed enamel in any way. Porcelain enamel is nonporous, its colors are permanent, its harder-than-steel surface is easily cleaned.

Today, the manufacture of Lustron's porcelain enamel has been reduced to an exact science. Extensive research, careful compounding and advanced techniques contribute to an ancient art which goes all the way back to 1500 B. C.

Miniral ingredients such as feldspar, borax, quartz, fluorspar and cryolite, assembled from the four corners of the earth, are mixed together and melted by intense heat. refining and cooling complete the cycle in the production of the basic material for porcelain enamel. When it is ground with water and small amounts of clay, color oxides, and special chemicals, it is ready to be applied to the metal.

The metal parts are covered on all surfaces with this mixture, and, after drying, a coating of powdered glass remains which in turn is mlted to a continuous layer, intimately fused with the steel, in Lustron's giant continuous firing furnaces. Red-heat temperatures of 1300 degrees bring about this welding of the porcelain enamel to the steel, resulting in a hard, durable, permanent coating of the steel which lends beauty to the product while affording lasting protection.

In recent years, the number of uses for porcelain enamel has increased by leaps and bounds . . . on kitchen stoves, washing machines, bathtubs, and even many a colorful service station on the corner.

It is not difficult to see why Lustron chose porcelain enameled steel for a building material. Here is a material that has the strength of metal . . . that can withstand the coldest blast of the North as well as the warm salt air of Florida . . . a material that lends itself to modern mass-production methods . . . that will endure for a lifetime, helping set "a new standard for living" in the Lustron Home.

Here panels are emerging from one of the continuous furnaces where fusion of the enamel to the steel takes place

Ancient and modern. Many porcelain enameled vases, reliquaries, and panels produced hundreds of years ago are as beautiful now as when they were made. Shown here is the famous Rospigliosi Cup by Benvenuto Cellini, in gold and enamel of the Sixteenth Century. A modern example of this ancient art is the series of decorative ornaments, eighteen feet high, on the outer walls of Radio City Music Hall in New York.

CELLINI CUP,
COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM OF ART

PLAQUE DESIGNED BY HILDRETH MEIERE, COURTESY OF RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL