America's first glass house, built for the 1933 World's Fair, set to shine again

Few people alive today have seen the exterior of the House of Tomorrow when it was a futuristic attraction at Chicago's 1933 World's Fair.

Designed by architect George Fred Keck, the 12-sided modernist exhibition home was America's first glass house — predating Mies van der Rohe's revolutionary Edith Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, by nearly 20 years.

But when the Keck house and four other Chicago World's Fair homes were relocated to Beverly Shores, Indiana, in 1935, its original floor-to-ceiling exterior glass walls were replaced by a facade with much smaller windows.

And for the next 90 years, Keck's original vision of the home was lost — until now.

Workers last month installed glass exteriors walls on the dodecagon-shaped structure, restoring the home to the way it looked at the start of the fair nine decades ago.

The work is part of a $4 million exterior restoration of the lakeside home, which, along with the other former World's Fair homes, is owned by the nonprofit Indiana Landmarks and sits within the federally owned Indiana Dunes National Park.

"The house was very ahead of its time, which is an often overused term," said Todd Zeiger, director of the Northern Regional Office of Indiana Landmarks. "Those other glass houses have their importance in architectural history. This one is due."

‘An important step’

Of Chicago's two fairs, the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition is the more famous, giving the world the Ferris wheel, Cracker Jacks and dancer Little Egypt and her hootchie cootchie dance, while serving as the city's grand coming out party.

But while the 1893 fair celebrated humankind's previous 400 years, the 1933 exposition, which opened at the start of the Great Depression, looked to the future and the technology it could bring.

The two-story House of Tomorrow was a perfect fit. Its glass facade allowed natural light and solar heat into the home decades before they became commonplace.

The glass marvel had air conditioning, a GE dishwasher, an attached garage and refrigerator that kept things cold without having to get a giant block of ice delivered and placed inside. The home also had a built-in airplane hangar.

Keck funded the home's construction and even designed some of its furniture. He recovered his costs by charging a 10-cent admission.

"This house is an important step in 20th century American modern architecture," said Charles Hasbrouck, director at bKL Architecture, who is overseeing the project.

The House of Tomorrow was among a series of exhibition homes built for the fair, including the Cypress Log Cabin; the blocky Wieboldt-Rostone House, which demonstrated the use of synthetic materials in home construction; the metal-skinned Armco-Ferro House; and the pink Florida Tropical House, which was sponsored by Florida to entice tourists to the state.

After the fair, developer Robert Bartlett had the five houses shipped across Lake Michigan and re-erected Beverly Shores, the new town he was developing.

The House of Tomorrow now has triple pane glass, which is a far better insulator than the original glazing. Zeiger said the new glass walls is nearly as transparent as the ones Keck designed.

"When you look at original pictures of the house, it's very clear, like a little jewel box," he said. "So it took quite a bit of work [now] to try to balance reflectivity and get it as clear as possible with today's modern windows."

Each of the 12 new panes weigh nearly 1,000 pounds and required a team of specialists to set them in place. The home's structural systems had to be beefed up to accommodate the added weight.

"Honestly, I don't know if you could have done this 30 or 40 years ago," Hasbrouck said. "Technology has finally kind of caught up to Keck's vision."

The homes had fallen into disrepair in the late 20th century. But that changed in 2000 when Indiana Landmarks entered an agreement with the National Park Service that allowed the homes to be leased for free for 30 years to anyone who could pay to restore the properties.

The deal saved four of the homes, but the House of Tomorrow, with its complex construction and its one-of-kind structure and foregone condition, turned off potential suitors.

So the groups turned to the federal government to fund the exterior restoration and were awarded the $4 million fix-up costs from the Great American Outdoors Act, funded through the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The renovation will also give the house its first elevator, and the garage will be restored to its original self. Part of the airplane hangar space will be converted to bedrooms.

Once the outside of the house is completed next year, the team will work to figure out what's next for the interior, Zeiger said.

"We envision the House of Tomorrow to be more of an overnight lodging type of use so that more of the public can see it and enjoy it once the construction is done," he said.