| Part of a series on |
| Living spaces |
|---|
 |
Home tour events or housing shows, sometimes branded as Parade of Homes, Street of Dreams, Tour of Homes, or Homearama, are building industry showcases of homes, typically new builds, held in several regions throughout the United States. The events date to the late 1940s.
In the years following World War II, the United States experienced housing shortages. [1] Builders entered the market to create mass housing developments such as Levittown; by 1952, such builders had produced six million new housing units. [1] The market for starter homes was saturated, and builders needed to create a new market for move-up homes that had additional space and included more upscale features. According to House & Home magazine, the building boom meant builders had "in a very literal sense...built themselves out of their easy market" and said "from now on they must sell their new houses to people already well-housed -- at least by yesterday's standards". [1] According to the Washington Post in 1953, home builders were being confronted for the first time since before the war with a buyer's market. [1]
Aspirational standards of living increased as Americans were exposed to bigger homes via movies, television, and advertising; by the mid-1950s 18 million families were financially able to consider moving from starter homes to move-up homes. [1] In general the period was one of increased consumer spending. [1]
The date of the first of such events is disputed. According to the National Association of Home Builders (NABH), the Salt Lake Home Builders Association held the first Parade of Homes in the United States in 1946. [2] According to Samuel Dodd, writing in the Journal of Design History , the first housing show was organized in 1948 by the NABH under the brand Parade of Homes. [1] The nation's first home-tour organization was established in Minnesota in 1948 by the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (now known as Housing First Minnesota). [3]
Early events featured crowd-drawing publicity stunts such as beauty contests and other sexualized components; a Hartford, Connecticut show featured a "girl in a bathtub" promotion -- a female employee sitting in a bathtub answering questions. [1] Other publicity stunts included a 1956 Kansas City show that featured a team assembling and furnishing a prefabricated home in eight hours. [1]
According to Dodd, by the mid-1950s such shows had become "the highlight of the annual homebuilding economy". [1]
Housing shows use a model home merchandising strategy to turn show attendees into buyers by staging the houses to allow attendees to picture themselves in the space. Beatrice West was a prominent designer and stager in the 1950s. [1]
Some cold war era events featured homes with a bomb shelter. [1]
In some locales, the events are presented by the local Home Builders Association or Building Industry Association. The events showcase homes, both new construction and remodeled homes. Homes generally include single-family homes, condominiums, duplexes, and/or townhomes. Sometimes entire new developments or streets within existing developments are developed for such events. [1] Sometimes event homes are located in multiple neighborhoods in a city.
The Parade of Homes presented by Housing First Minnesota is the largest housing show in the nation. [4] The event runs twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, with participation peaking at 1,259 home entries in a single event in 2006. [5] The first United States Trademark for "Parade of Homes" was registered by the Home Builders Association of Fort Wayne, Inc. [6] and was transferred to Housing First Minnesota in 2010. [7]
The Portland metropolitan area of Oregon Home Builders Association event features high-end homes designed to showcase new designs and amenities. Started in 1976, [8] [9] a previous incarnation of the event was known as the Parade of Homes and later as Street of Dreams.
Some events allow tours for free; others require an admission ticket to view the homes. Some events offer awards in various categories. Some events feature remodeled homes.
Portland is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated in the northwestern area of the state at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous county in Oregon. As of 2020, Portland had a population of 652,503, making it the 26th-most populous city in the United States, the sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest, after Seattle. Approximately 2.5 million people live in the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR–WA metropolitan statistical area, making it the 25th most populous in the United States. About half of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metropolitan area.
Moda Center, formerly known as the Rose Garden, is the primary indoor sports arena in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is used for basketball, ice hockey, rodeos, circuses, conventions, ice shows, concerts, and dramatic productions. The arena has a capacity of 19,393 spectators when configured for basketball. It is equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics and other amenities.
The Veterans Memorial Coliseum is an indoor arena located in the oldest part of the Rose Quarter area in Portland, Oregon. The arena is the home of the Portland Winterhawks, a major junior ice hockey team, and was the original home of the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association. It has been included on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its architectural significance.
The Portland Rose Festival is an annual civic festival held during the month of June in Portland, Oregon. It is organized by the volunteer non-profit Portland Rose Festival Foundation with the purpose of promoting the Portland region. It includes three separate parades, along with a number of other activities.
KB Home is a homebuilding company based in the United States, founded in 1957 as Kaufman & Broad in Detroit, Michigan. It was the first company to be traded on the NYSE as a home builder. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California.
Alberta Arts District is a commercial district in Portland, Oregon which connects the Concordia, King and Vernon neighborhoods in the Northeast quadrant of the city. The district centers on NE Alberta Street, and stretches approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km), from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to NE 33rd Avenue.
King is a neighborhood in the northeast section of Portland, Oregon, United States. Like many of the surrounding neighborhoods, King has historically had one of the highest proportions of non-white residents in the city. Census data taken 2010 show that the neighborhood was 60.1% white.
United States housing prices experienced a major market correction after the housing bubble that peaked in early 2006. Prices of real estate then adjusted downwards in late 2006, causing a loss of market liquidity and subprime defaults.
Keller Auditorium, formerly known as the Portland Municipal Auditorium, the Portland Public Auditorium, and the Portland Civic Auditorium, is a performing arts center located on Clay Street in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Portland's Centers for the Arts. Opened in 1917, the venue first changed names in 1966, being renamed again in 2000 in honor of a $1.5 million renovation donation by Richard B. Keller. An extensive remodeling and modernization in 1967–68 effectively changed its original exterior appearance beyond recognition.
The East Market District, colloquially referred to as NuLu, is an unofficial district of Louisville, Kentucky, situated along Market Street between downtown to the west, Butchertown to the north, Phoenix Hill to the south, and Irish Hill to the east. The area is home to schools, churches, large and small businesses and some of the city's oldest homes and businesses. A destination since Louisville's founding, Market Street has played host to a variety of businesses throughout the city's history that have drawn Louisvillians for generations to its addresses.
Thomas Howard Peterson was an American retailer, pitchman, and television personality from Portland, Oregon. Peterson opened his first store in 1964, which grew to a regional consumer electronics, home appliance, and furniture chain in the 1970s. His memorable television commercials and unusual promotions made him a widely recognized personality in the Portland area by the 1980s, leading to several cameo appearances in the films of Gus Van Sant.
Pride Northwest, Inc. is a community-based regional LGBTQ+ Pride 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The non-profit organization was founded in 1994 and the current executive director of the organization is Debra Porta, who has served as the president of Pride Northwest since 2006.
The South Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon. The Oregonian has called it Portland's "extended family room", as Pioneer Courthouse Square is known as Portland's "living room".
Fred Lawrence Peterson was an American politician and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of Minnesota, he grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he served as mayor from 1953 through 1956.
The city of Portland, Oregon is ideal for growing roses outdoors due to its location within the marine west coast climate region, its warm, dry summers and rainy but mild winters, and its heavy clay soils. Portland has been known as the City of Roses, or Rose City, since 1888, after Madame Caroline Testout, a large pink variety of hybrid tea rose bred in France, was introduced to the city. Thousands of rose bushes were planted, eventually lining 200 miles (320 km) of Portland's streets in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905.
The Dream, also known as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Sculpture, is an outdoor bronze sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. by Michael Florin Dente, located outside the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. The 8-foot (2.4 m) memorial statue was dedicated on August 28, 1998, the 35th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It depicts King plus three allegorical sculptures: a man who symbolizes the American worker, a woman who represents immigration, and a young girl shown releasing King's coattail, who represents, according to Dente, the "letting go" that occurs when people sacrifice their time and energy to engage in a struggle. The sculpture is part of the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection, courtesy of the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
The Mayo House is a historical house built by Martin Nicholas Mayo in the 1890s. It was built in Portland, Oregon's Eliot neighborhood. It is notable for being relocated in 1912, 1930, and 2019 to avoid demolition in order to make room for new construction projects. The house utilizes the Queen Anne architecture style. The relocation of the house in 2019 will see the house repurposed by local artist Cleo Davis as a site for local art and history to be archived and made available for the public. This new archive will be used to show the history of African-Americans in the local area of Portland. In order to reduce the cost of the relocation, the Portland City Council waived $40,000 in fees. The house was relocated in late January 2019.
New Columbia is a housing development in the Portsmouth neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It was previously called Columbia Villa. It is operated by the city's public housing authority, Home Forward, and is the largest public housing development in the state.
Bipartisan Cafe is a coffee shop and bakery in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. Since Hobie Bender and Peter Emerson started the business in 2005, the venue has hosted events that include meetings of civic groups and politicians, and viewing parties for political events. Bipartisan Cafe has garnered a positive reception, and has been named as one of Portland's best coffee and pie eateries. The venue's marionberry pie was included in the American Automobile Association's 2022 list of the ten best regional Western dishes.
Alcoa Care-free Homes are a group of suburban homes designed for Alcoa by Charles M. Goodman during the Mid-century modern movement, incorporating ideas generated at the Women's Congress On Housing.
 | This architecture-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
