(Older) prefab homes

[fan-of-fans]

In my area there are a few older styles of prefab homes.

There seems to have been quite a few built between about 1972-1974, I think there was a plant in central Florida that build these, but I don't know the name of it. They were very 70s, with green bathroom fixtures and fake wood paneling.

In the 1980s and 1990s Wausau prefab homes were pretty popular here. Many towns had a Wausau model home/sales ofice on a prominent roadway.

These were pretty nice, 2x6 construction, sheetrock on the walls and ceiling, vaulted ceilings. I know Wausau is based in Wisconsin, but I am not sure what became of their Florida division, all of the sales offices have now become other things. I think their drawback was it was often cheaper to have a site built home than a Wausau home.

I did find a site from down in the Florida Keys that seems to still sell them, and shows some of their older floorplans still.

We also have several Yaca-Domes in my area, which were umbrella like dome homes, with fiberglass panels and a steel structure. These were build in the 70s and early 80s, then they started making them out of wood in the late 80s through the early 2000s. They were built by inventor Joseph Yacoboni, who was from Pittsburg PA. The first one was built there I believe, it's now on Airbnb.

 

[circlew]

I bet that the company you're thinking of was Jim Walter Homes, as they were Florida based. I remember seeing them in Mississippi, as they had a location in Hattiesburg.

 

[davey7]

There's a Lustron for sale in Beverly Shores, Indiana for nearly a million at the moment!

 

[fan-of-fans]

Jim Walter

These 70s homes did look similar to Jim Walter from the outside. But they were clearly prefab and assembled in two halves. They had fake wood paneling and those white ceiling panels that had the screws with little decorative flowers around them, like a mobile home would have.

They also all came with GE appliances in either harvest gold or avocado green. The range was the one with the brushed silver panel and had the three timer dials and a GE hood.

My father told me one time that there was a big plant in Homeland FL that probably was where these were built. But I can't find any info as to what or where it was. Homeland is a little bump in the road outside of Bartow FL.

Jim Walter homes were site built. I believe they generally would construct the exterior of the home and get it dried in and then the customer would finish out the interior.

There were quite a few Jim Walter homes built here in the 80s and 90s. One popular one was on wooden pilings, with an open area below for parking or sometimes enclosed. There are a few here like that. They also built an L-shaped model, and one two story that had a bay window. That model was called "The Victorian".

Most of the Jim Walter homes here were in rural or woodsy areas outside of town. I think I remember reading about a class action lawsuit when I first got on the internet around 2003.

I still have a brochure somewhere that shows all the floorplans they were building in the late 90s. I also have two Wausau Homes brochures/plan books around.

One of our neighbors down the street built their house in the late 90s. They were originally going to get a Wausau home but IIRC they weren't allowed to have a prefab home on this street. So they ended up having a site built home, and actually used one of the Wausau floorplans for it. (The Biscayne I believe was the layout they used).

 

[circlew]

Cole, that's true that JW Homes were site- built. You say the ones you remember came as two sections that were bolted together; do you know if they came with a steel frame with removable wheels, or were lifted off a flatbed truck? Your description with that type of interior sounds more like a double wide MH, but may be referred to as a "modular" home if the wheels and hitch are removed after delivery. My sister purchased such a home in northern Ohio in the mid 80's, but it was more deluxe, with drywall inside. I've also heard them called sectional homes. Prefab can also refer to homes that are "panelized" (individual wall sections), or "pre-cut" (framing cut to size, like an old Sears catalog home).

 

[wayupnorth]

Technically, my house is an early pre-fab. It was all pre-cut and labeled for installation and delivered to the site. Then another crew put it all together. It was originally our summer camp but in 1995 I had it put on a new foundation with all new well, septic, electrical plumbing and heating and I have been here year round since. I dont have a pix of the structure but this is what I see that makes it all worthwhile.

 

[foraloysius]

That's a magnificent view!

 

[polkanut]

FYI

Wausau Homes is still in business, and going strong.

 

Midwest Custom Builders & New Home Construction | Wausau Homes

 

[pulltostart]

Cole,

I'm looking at a Directory of Prefabricators in the December 1958 House and Home and the only prefabber listed in FL at that time was in St. Petersburg and was named Trendline.  I'll check a few other years and see if I find more information.

 

For the most part, traditionally prefabbers built wall panels in a factory and shipped them to the jobsite for assembly by a local builder.  Exceptions did exist, and the degree to which each prefabber built/finished the panels varied a good bit.

 

By the time the market included homes that were shipped in two sections (like a double wide) and placed on a foundation at the site, these were commonly referred to as manufactured homes.  That would include the model you described with the prefinished ceiling panels with decorative rosettes.

 

lawrence

 

[tomturbomatic]

Friends lived in a Sears Craftsman home in Chevy Chase, MD. Everything was delivered to the home site. The house was beautiful and built decades before they bought it from the original owners.

I remember the billboards for Jim Walter Homes. The only thing more torturous in Florida were Robert Hall clothing stores.

 

[kelvinatorgal]

Gunnison Homes

Gunnison homes had plywood paneled walls. Not sure if real wood or not. The one I was in the walls were not painted! A few links on them but here is just one:

http://instanthouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/gunnison-magic-homes.html

 

[pulltostart]

Gunnison ads tended to illustrate how easily marks and scuffs (even crayon marks) could be removed from their prefinished walls.  The skins on those wall panels were the real thing.

 

lawrence

 

[circlew]

The Gunnison homes have a certain charm to them, but I wouldn't want one. The walls are awfully thin at 2", so think noise would penetrate them readily. My biggest concern though, is fire safety. I doubt it would take long at all for fire to spread throughout the structure. A conventional house with plaster over Rocklath or expanded metal lath is far more fire resistant.

 

[sudsmaster]

If I'm not mistaken, plaster walls went out of style here in the 50's or 60's. Stuff built since then is sheet rock nailed to 2x4 or 2x6 framing. Not sure which is better, although the sheet rock is probably cheaper to install (lower labor costs). It would be difficult to punch through a plaster/lathe wall. Much easier to punch through a sheet rock wall. Don't ask me how I know ;-). The sound problem can be addressed with proper insulation fill between the framing members. Necessary on outer walls, although I suspect a lot of places in California don't even have that, or the insulation has slumped over the years. And so it goes.

My current home was built in 1941 and the original part has plaster/lathe. A master bedroom addition was put on in the 60's, and is sheet rock with fiberglass insulation, along with several other changes to the 1941 part (a bedroom off the kitchen converted into a family room contiguous with the kitchen, the kitchen wall knocked down and a cooktop peninsula put in its place, etc. Also a floor to ceiling brick fireplace was installed into the family room né bedroom, which was probably a major construction event at the time. It works well and I added a blower insert to it about 10 years ago (also added one to the 1941 fireplace in the original living room). Have accumulated a fair amount of firewood and so I'm planning on firing up the fireplace(s) this winter, to help keep gas consumption down. Air quality rules permitting ("Spare The Air Alerts"). Generally OK on rainy and/or windy nights. Generally not OK on calm windless (and cold) days/nights. Have done what I can to insulate the place; maximum fiberglass in the attic (where previously there was none), as well as more insulation under most of the flooring in the crawl space. Also wrapped insulation around the forced air heating ductwork in the crawl space. Did all that about 15 years ago, and cut the winter heating bill at least in half.

I guess I'm here for the duration. Put too much work into it.

 

[pulltostart]

Gunnison

Here's an interesting piece of Gunnison information on Ebay.  The listing includes this history of the company:

 

[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']Pre-fabricated housing pioneer, Foster Gunnison, cut his modernist teeth on lighting design. His works illuminated New York’s Empire State Building and Rockefeller Centre. The machine-age aesthetic of these buildings influenced design across the nation.[/COLOR]

<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']A few years after the Empire State Building opened in 1931, Gunnison turned his estimable talents and machine-age mindset in a new direction. He opened Gunnison Magichomes in 1935 and began the assembly-line production of pre-fabricated houses.[/COLOR]</div>
<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black'] [/COLOR]</div>
[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']Gunnison began this cutting-edge venture in New Albany, Indiana, an Ohio River town with good transportation networks and a long history of wood product production. His homes were built of 4-foot by 8-foot panels of insulated plywood. They were mass produced and elements were interchangeable in a number of different floor plans and extras. “Forbes” called Gunnison the "Henry Ford of housing." Raw materials arrived at the front door, the walls, ceiling and floors were factory finished, doors were hung and windows installed as the panels moved along the conveyor belts and out the rear door onto trucks headed all across the nation.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']
In 1937 the firm changed its name to Gunnison Housing Corporation, and in 1944 to Gunnison Homes, Inc. World War II temporarily halted production, but in 1944 Gunnison began construction of a new modern factory on Grant Line Road in New Albany. Before the new factory was complete, Gunnison sold 70% of the company to U. S. Steel. U.S. Steel kept Gunnison as general manager of the firm and went to work producing his homes at the new streamlined factory.[/COLOR]

<span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400; color: #00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black';">A “Time” magazine article in 1944 claimed that Gunnison’s “conveyor-belted production methods” produced all the parts of a house in 25 minutes. It also noted that Gunnison believed that success in the marketplace depended on, among other things, focusing sales in communities of 10,000 to 35,000 where building codes “are less onerous,” and keeping prices low enough for “lower-middle-class” buyers. Gunnison homes could be purchased for $2,800 to $5,000, depending on which options were chosen.</span>

<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black'] [/COLOR]</div>
<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']Now known as Gunnison Homes, Inc., the firm manufactured thousands of prefabricated homes selling them through dealers and shipping them across the nation. In 1953, Gunnison Homes, Inc. sold out to U.S. Steel, but the firm continued to produce homes at the New Albany factory under the new name, U.S. Steel Homes, until 1974.[/COLOR]</div>
<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black'] [/COLOR]</div>
<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']Gunnison homes were constructed and still stand around the country, although it’s likely that most have been altered in some way, usually with new siding covering their original insulated-plywood exteriors. Chimneys are often the only remaining telltale exterior signs that the house was a Gunnison. Rectangular metal chimneys pierce the roofs on most models; decorative metal grates may remain beneath the gable as another tell-tale sign of a re-clad Gunnison.[/COLOR]</div>
<div>[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black'] [/COLOR]</div>
[COLOR=#00429a; font-family: 'Arial Black']The Gunnison Homes factory in New Albany still looks very much as it did when it was a cutting edge Machine-Age marvel in the 1940s. A careful observer might even notice the expanded Gunnison Home at the rear of the property, plywood walls still intact. The buildings and site are significant contributors to the history of housing in our nation.[/COLOR]

 

lawrence

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[polkanut]

My cousin and her husband purchased a Stratford Home in 1978.  In fact, the home was delivered the day of our Uncle Elmer's funeral, Oct. 25, 1978.

 

The company has been in business since 1973 in Stratford, WI.  They also have a satellite factory in Rathdrum, ID.

 

Stratford Homes - Custom Modular Prefab Manufactured Homes

 

[fan-of-fans]

Lawrence...

Thanks for the information!

I tried looking to see if maybe the property records of any of these houses might have an owner name or some kind of records of who the builder was, but I can't find anything going back that far on them. There is one of them on the highway near me here that I'm thinking might have been a model or sales center at one time.

Regarding these modular homes in question, I'm not sure if they came on steel frame or not. I am assuming they were lifted off the trailer.

Another thing with them, is like many mobile homes (mostly older ones) they only have 7 foot ceilings.

Regarding the Sears homes, there are a few in our county. I remember reading a newspaper article about them a few years ago.

The Wausau Homes they build today are much more opulent than the ones they seemed to build here in Florida. Most of them were just rectangular or L shaped single story homes with vinyl siding.

I remember visiting the plant of one of these manufactured home companies back in the 90s. I feel like it was Wausau, but it may have been Palm Harbor Homes.

 

[sarahperdue]

Jim Walter

I remember back in the 80s my grandparent's housekeeper and husband, both of whom were second or third generation workers for my family moved off the place and built a Jim Walter home. They had been living in what can loosely be called a house on the family place. My grandmother was insulted and furious that they weren't "grateful" for the house they had.

It's been almost forty years. Sarah and Pig still live in their Jim Walter home which is in immaculate condition and surrounded by a beautiful yard. Sarah and Pig still work for me taking care of my grandmother's house. And yes, Pig. I asked him once what his given name was and if he'd like to be called by it. He said no, everyone calls him Pig.

Sarah