Back in the 1930's at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago, there were a collection of prototype/conceptual homes, designed in a specific style, and/or to represent life in the future, as the fair looked ahead to futuristic lifestyles and showcased different places. When the fair ended, an entrepreneur brought five of these homes to Beverly Shores, a community sitting on the Lake Michigan shoreline in northeastern Porter County, Indiana. His business venture for them didn't work out, and eventually, they deteriorated, until determined individuals with the National Park Service and the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana came to the rescue. They found people who were willing to spend the money to fix them up in accordance with specifications based partly on how they were originally. These leasees live in these homes, and once a year, open them up to the public for tours.
So that's just what we did this particular day, joining in the beloved company of the Ruggabers. This was my second time on this tour, as I went the year before. With the government's shutdown being over, we were fortunate to have NPS rangers lead these tours.
We toured five homes: The first was the Armco-Ferro House, which is a rectangular prism shape, and has a solarium on the top, with great views.
Next was the House of Tomorrow, the only house that has no occupants, as no one has been found to fix it up according to the specifications. It is twelve-sided, and has a space to serve as an airplane hangar, the thought being decades subsequent to the 30's, there would be widespread ownership of airplanes, similar to how there has been widespread ownership of cars for the past few decades.
The next two houses are essentially complete enough in their fixes to be livable. And the interior decor was fabulous. (Please note that because these all five houses function as private homes, no pictures of the interiors are allowed.) The Cypress Log House joins together what were once two separate structures, and the cypress is in keeping with a Southern US style. There were some great views out those windows in the front of the house.
The Florida Tropical House was designed with that state in mind. It has great views out onto the beach.
Finally, the Wieboldt-Rostone House is still being worked on, but has made a lot of progress since last year when I saw it. It was designed to showcase a special type of material on the exterior walls.
As we toured the houses, I drew an astute insight from an exchange between one of the tourists, and one of the homes' occupants. The tourist wanted to know who the occupant was, asking for "the owner". The man who occupies the house pointed out, "You are the owner; we are leasing this home."
There's really something amazing to be said about that. These homes, because they are administered by the National Park Service and the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana , belong to us: We, the people of the United States, own these homes, just as we own a wealth of other historic, cultural, and ecological treasures throughout the United States, in many NPS sites. And we give them over to select individuals for caretaking so that they can be preserved for us to continue enjoying well into the future.
And how nice it was to take a day of pleasure to see the national treasures that are these homes, close by in the dunes at the southern tip of Lake Michigan in Indiana.
To learn more about these homes, you can go to the webpage about them within the website of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore: http://www.nps.gov/indu/historyculture/centuryofprogress.htm
For more information on these annual tours, please go to the website of the Dunes National Park Association: http://www.dunesnationalpark.org/
The tickets for these tours, normally held around the third Saturday of October each year, usually become available for purchase in early September, so check back then for the 2014 tours.
(Note: I took all the pictures of these houses. If you're keen on detail, I'd like to point out that I took the pictures of the Armco-Ferro and Florida Tropical Houses when I came for the tours in 2012. The pictures of the other houses were taken during the tour I went on more recently in 2013--notice that it was a much more cloudy day in 2013.)
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