The Barcroft Lustron, one of Arlington's six metal prefab houses, was reduced to scrap metal on Apr. 16. (Kim A. O'Connell)

Long before IKEA's prefabricated houses, there were Lustrons. Carl Strandlund's Lustron Corporation manufactured metal ranch houses between 1948 and 1950, and Americans built 2,680 of them.

Arlington, Va., just outside Washington, D.C., has six Lustron houses—or it did until this week, when a new owner demolished the so-called Barcroft Lustron, constructed in 1949.

A local group, the Arlington Heritage Alliance, tried to save the Barcroft Lustron. One of its members tried to convince owner Andy Symonds to allow the group time to disassemble and store it.

Bulldozers destroyed the 1,085-square-foot house on Monday to make way for a new residence on the .22-acre site. "It was not fiscally reasonable," to stall construction of his new five-bedroom house, Symonds says. "[The Lustron] was not practical for today's day and age."

Arlington County originally had 11 Lustrons. Last year, a Lustron owner donated another 1949 structure known as the Krowne House to the county, which paid to dismantle and store it.

"One of the reasons this house was ultimately lost was that we just didn't have the patience and generosity with the owner that we had with the Krowne House," says Cynthia Liccese-Torres, historic preservation planner for the city of Arlington, which plans to reassemble the Krowne House.

Symonds called the alliance and the city when demolition was under way, allowing both groups to salvage windows and exterior panels for other Lustron owners.

Virginia's largest collection of Lustrons is at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va.—but not for long. The Marine Corps is offering 58 Lustrons to anyone who will move the National Register-listed structures off the base to make way for new houses.

Read more about Quantico's Lustrons on Preservation Online >>

Coming Soon: The National Trust's Midwest Office is developing a Web site for Lustron owners and admirers. The site will include history of the houses, an interactive timeline, technical information for homeowners, repair instructions and demonstrations, a "Lustron Library" of photos and online manuals, a marketplace, and a Google Map-linked database of all the surviving houses. The site is scheduled to launch on June 6.

Check out the magazine's feature on Lustrons in the upcoming July/August issue.

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