Century of Progress Architectural District
Indiana
On the south shore of Lake Michigan in Beverly Shores, Indiana, a small neighborhood contains something genuinely strange: a cluster of houses that were built as demonstration models for the nineteen thirty-three and nineteen thirty-four Chicago World's Fair, known as the Century of Progress Exposition. The fair showcased futuristic American housing, and five of those demonstration homes were later barged across Lake Michigan and installed here. The House of Tomorrow was an experimental glass-walled house of the future.
The Florida Tropical House brought a flamingo-pink design with open terraces to the Indiana dunes. The Armco-Ferro House demonstrated prefabricated steel panels. After the fair closed, private buyers purchased the homes and they became permanent residences.
They are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a district, a time-capsule cluster of mid-Depression optimism about what American family life might become.
