Rare Arlington Heights Lustron home meets wrecking ball

What may have been the last Lustron home in Arlington Heights was recently demolished, in what was a rare example of the housing stock available in the post-World War II boom.

Only 2,500 of the prefabricated steel houses were built nationwide between 1948 and 1950 when returning soldiers were looking for affordable, low-maintenance homes.

So few of the single-story houses were constructed because the Lustron Corporation folded in 1950.

The two-bedroom, one-bath Lustron home at 836 N. Dunton Ave. — with its steel enamel panels for exterior walls and a steel shingle roof — fell victim to the wrecking ball this month due to its poor condition and the prospect of a larger, two-story house to be built in its place.

The former Lustron property is about three blocks north of the Arlington Heights Historical Museum, which fought to preserve the old house.

“We can't save everything, but it's a worthwhile discussion to talk about preservation of historic resources in a community,” said Dan Schoeneberg, the museum administrator. “Those are the things that help give a community its identity, its shape and form, and its sense of being.”

The village doesn't prohibit demolition of houses, officials say, and there isn't a historic preservation commission.

But when the design commission looked at architectural plans for the new 2,779-square-foot house in July, the panel did require the developer to provide the historical museum with drawings of the original home and make an effort to salvage parts of it for re-use by other Lustron homeowners.

By one estimate, there may be fewer than 1,200 such homes left in the country. There's a cluster in Lombard, and perhaps one left in Arlington Heights, but museum officials are still researching that possibility, Schoeneberg said.

Only six were constructed in Arlington Heights, he added.

The house on Dunton was the only Lustron property included in a 2004 report by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on historic preservation.

In addition to the original drawings, the museum also received some of the building components, including pieces of the roof, a cabinet door, and plaque that includes the Lustron model and serial numbers.

Those artifacts will go into storage for now, Schoeneberg said, but could become part of future exhibits about the development of Arlington Heights.

“It speaks very specifically about a time and place within suburban America,” he said.