Winslow Ames House | |
Location | 132 Mohegan Avenue, New London, Connecticut |
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Coordinates | 41°22′34″N72°6′9″W / 41.37611°N 72.10250°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1933 |
Architect | Robert W. McLaughlin Jr. |
Architectural style | International style |
NRHP reference No. | 95000283 [1] |
Added to NRHP | March 23, 1995 |
The Winslow Ames House is a prefabricated modular International Style house in New London, Connecticut, United States. It was designed by Robert W. McLaughlin Jr. and was built in 1933. Winslow Ames, a professor of art history at Connecticut College and the art director of the Lyman Allyn Museum, had the home built after attending the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. Constructed for $7,500, the prefabricated house is one of two surviving Motohomes produced by McLaughlin's company American Houses Inc. The modular house, comprising three rectangles and a flat roof, was constructed on a concrete slab with a welded steel framework. It was made with asbestos panels and features a core component that provides the heating and plumbing functions for the house. The other two modules feature two bedrooms and a one-car garage.
Ames and his family resided in the house briefly, Connecticut College acquired the house in 1949 and used it for faculty housing until 1986. The house was in a state of disrepair by 1989 and was a hazard due to its construction with asbestos panels. It was slated to be demolished, but Ms. Hendrickson rallied supporter to the save the house after uncovering its history. A restoration and rehabilitation project was completed in 1994 and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The other prefabricated house built by Ames, House at 130 Mohegan Avenue, was also added the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
The Winslow Ames House was unlike other homes of the 1930s, it is a modular home that was constructed on a concrete slab and constructed with a welded steel framework. [2] [3] The designer of the house was John B. McLaughlin Jr., who co-founded American Houses Inc. in 1932. [2] McLaughlin's designs focused on inexpensive housing through mass production and new materials and technology. [2] The International Style house was modular and intended to allow easy enlargement, dismantling and relocation of the structure if needed. [2] The houses, termed "Motohomes", featured modular "motounits" that contained heating and plumbing equipment. [2] The use of steel in the prefabricated homes would later be limited by World War II, which made steel unavailable for civilian use. [2] After the war, prefabricated homes were typically made of wood and offices were normally constructed of steel and concrete. [2]
The house bears the name of Winslow Ames, a professor of art history at Connecticut College and the art director of the Lyman Allyn Museum. [2] [3] In 1933, Ames decided to construct two houses on the museum-owned property after seeing prefabricated homes at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. [2] [note 1] Ames had a strong interest in the Modernism movement and believed such houses would become predominant. [3] The Ames house cost $7,500, similar to other McLaughlin houses from 1933 and 1934, which ranged from $3,500 to $7,500 each. [2] Later, Ames and his family would briefly take up residence in the house. [3] The other house, known as the "House at 130 Mohegan Avenue" would be added the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. [4]
The Winslow Ames house rests on a concrete foundation and has a welded steel skeleton. [3] The walls were made of 4 feet (1.2 m) white-painted panels that were constructed of asbestos board over an insulating core. [3] The two-story house is composed of three rectangular modules, offset to create an irregular plan, with a flat roof structure. [3] The largest block in the middle contains the service core with the kitchen and bathroom. [3] The left block contains the main entry, stair hall and two bedrooms. [3] The right block consists of the one-car garage and its second story only covers its overlap with the middle block. [3]
The house was ready for occupancy in 1934 and was used by many tenants, but the Ames sold the house to the Connecticut College in 1949. [5] Sometime after its completion, Winslow Ames and his family lived in the house for a brief period. [3] From 1949 to 1987, the college used it for faculty housing. [2] One of the tenets, Mary Kent, lived in the house with her husband and three children from 1958 through 1961. [2] Throughout its life the original furnace, kitchen cabinets, plumbing fixtures were replaced, but the core module has retained its purpose. [3] The house fell into a state of disrepair, becoming an "eyesore". [2] By 1989, the college was concerned with the asbestos in the building and obtained a permit to demolish the house; the college intended to use the land for a boathouse. [2] After its restoration was completed, the Connecticut College uses the house as an office and for meeting rooms. [3] [5]
The house was saved through the efforts of Ms. Hendrickson, who uncovered the history surrounding the house and its designer. [2] The house was a deemed a "rare survivor" because only one other Motohome, in White Plains, New York, was known to exist. [2] Hendrickson gathered supporters, including from the students and faculty of the college and New London Landmarks to save the house. [2] The demolition was delayed and in May 1990, the Connecticut Historical Commission gave the college $24,000. [2] The college matched the funds, which were originally planned for its demolition. [2] During the restoration, the asbestos board panels were covered over non-asbestos panels that mimic the appearance of the original. [3] A new roof was installed and the windows were replaced with vertical casement windows which were originally used. [6] The interior and exterior of the house was coated with white paint, but the restoration did not revert the flooring to the original Masonite rectangles. [6] The restoration project was completed in 1994 and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. [3] [5]
Lustron houses are prefabricated enameled steel houses developed in the post-World War II era United States in response to the shortage of homes for returning G.I.s by Chicago industrialist and inventor Carl Strandlund. Considered low-maintenance and extremely durable, they were expected to attract modern families who might not have the time for, or interest in, repairing and painting conventional wood and plaster houses. Lustron production ceased in 1950 due to the company's inability to pay back the startup loans it had received from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Over 2,000 homes were constructed during the Lustron's brief production period, and many remain in use today. Several have been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
A modular building is a prefabricated building that consists of repeated sections called modules. Modularity involves constructing sections away from the building site, then delivering them to the intended site. Installation of the prefabricated sections is completed on site. Prefabricated sections are sometimes placed using a crane. The modules can be placed side-by-side, end-to-end, or stacked, allowing for a variety of configurations and styles. After placement, the modules are joined together using inter-module connections, also known as inter-connections. The inter-connections tie the individual modules together to form the overall building structure.
Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some researchers refer it to “various materials joined together to form a component of the final installation procedure“.
This page is a list of construction topics.
Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled. Some current prefab home designs include architectural details inspired by postmodernism or futurist architecture.
A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Various materials were combined to create a part of the installation process.
The Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme was formed in England in 1957 to combine the resources of Local Authorities with the purpose of developing a prefabricated school building programme. Initially developed by Charles Herbert Aslin, the county architect for Hertfordshire, the system was used as a model for several other counties, most notably Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. CLASP's popularity in these coal mining areas was in part because the system permitted fairly straightforward replacement of subsidence-damaged sections of building.
Cemesto is a sturdy, lightweight, waterproof and fire-resistant composite building material made from a core of sugarcane fiber insulating board, called Celotex, surfaced on both sides with asbestos cement. It was originally developed by the Celotex Corporation and first introduced to the market in 1931.
Prefabs were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944.
The Hastings Prototype House is located at Farragut Parkway and High Street in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, United States. It is a Moderne-style concrete building erected during the 1930s. In 1991 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Double Island Point Light is an active lighthouse located at the summit of Double Island Point, a coastal headland within the Cooloola section of the Great Sandy National Park. It is located at the southern end of Wide Bay, 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia.
Edward Winslow Ames Jr. was an American art historian, author, and museum director. His academic research focused on Victorian art, but he "also had a deep interest in Modernism and the art of his own period".
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building is a low-rise Brutalist office building located in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Originally known as the South Portal Building, the Hubert H. Humphrey Building was dedicated on November 1, 1977. It became the headquarters of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). After the department's education component was given to the newly created United States Department of Education in 1979, the newly named United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) continued to occupy the structure.
The House at 130 Mohegan Avenue, also known as Rusty, the House of Steel or Steel House, is a prefabricated, modular, International Style house in New London, Connecticut, United States. The House was designed by Howard T. Fisher, who founded General Houses, Inc. in 1932. Winslow Ames, a professor of art history at Connecticut College and the art director of the Lyman Allyn Museum, had the home built after attending the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. The House is a single story 21 feet (6.4 m) by 37 feet (11 m) rectangular steel prefabricated home that rests upon a concrete slab. It originally had a flat roof and included an attached garage. Throughout the years, the house has undergone significant alteration, including the addition of a gable roof.
Howard T. Fisher was an American architect, city planner, and educator.
The Josephine Reifsnyder Lustron House in Stillwater, Oklahoma is a historic prefabricated home. One of several Lustron houses built in Oklahoma during the post World War II housing shortage, this house is a well-preserved two-bedroom Lustron Westchester model with a detached Lustron garage.
The Alpine Elementary School is a compound consisting of four buildings in Alpine, Arizona, operated by the public Alpine Elementary School District. It serves grades K-8. The original school building of this complex was built in 1930, but a government-funded school had operated here since 1882. The current gym/auditorium was constructed in 1939 for use as a chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had members in the community.
The State Arsenal and Armory, formally the Governor William A. O'Neill State Armory and informally the Connecticut State Armory, is a historic military facility at 360 Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Built in 1906, it is a distinctive example of Classical Revival architecture, built using then-innovative construction techniques involving concrete and cast stone. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. It serves as the headquarters of the Connecticut State Militia.
The Ernest Eggiman House is a prefabricated house assembled in 1936 in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a product called the Motohome - an attempt to provide fast, inexpensive housing during the Great Depression. In 1994 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the only Motohome in Wisconsin.
The Sample—Lindblaum House, also spelled Sample—Lindblom House and alternatively known as the Odile Babb House, is a historic house in Wakonda, South Dakota. It is the only Lustron home in Wakonda. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.