• Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

    Indiana Dunes

    National Lakeshore Indiana

House of Tomorrow

backside of a three story house with a airplane garage as part of the first floor

House of Tomorrow, taken in 1933 From the book "Chicago Architecture and Design" by George A. Larson, Jay Pridmore, date unknown.

West of the Cypress Log Cabin is the House of Tomorrow, creation of Chicago architect George Fred Keck. The first floor was designed as the service area, originally containing the garage and an airplane hangar. World's Fair optimists assumed every future family would own an airplane. The second and third floors were the essence of the house, containing the main living spaces and a solarium. The three-story, steel-framed building was originally clad in glass on the second and third floors. Keck defied mechanical engineers, who said that due to the expansive use of glass the house couldn't be heated, and installed a floor to ceiling "curtain wall system". Instead of heat loss during the winter, the level of solar heat gain actually reduced the need for mechanical heating. During the summer the solar gain was too great for the home's revolutionary air-conditioning system to handle, and it failed. When Robert Bartlett moved the house to Beverly Shores, he replaced the glass walls with operable windows to allow for proper air circulation.
 
three story house on a small wooded hill with stairs going up to it
House of Tomorrow, front elevation,
taken in 1994 by Jack Boucher, Photographer
Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service.
 

Did You Know?

Close-up of flames burning a prairie

Without fire, there could be no prairie at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Non-prairie plant species would crowd out native prairie grasses. These rare grasslands are maintained through periodic controlled burns.