The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-06-24
FUTURE HOMES
TO Be FACTORY
BUILT PRODUCTS
Mass Production OF New
Steel Houses to
Start Soon.

By Times Special
NEW YORK, June 24.-The for
nation of General Houses, Inc, to
produce houses by mass production
factory methods, comparable to the
automotive industry. is announced
today in the July issue of Fortune,
the executives magazine. This
company plans to enable the aver
age family to select its home in a
showroom, have it erected by a
small crew within four days, pay
for it on the installment plan, and
trade it in after few years as
first payment on larger or better
model.
General Houses has enlisted the
cooperation of eight nationally
known building supply manufac-
turers with assets of nearly $1,000,-
100000 who have undertaken studios
and laboratory experiments to de-
termine what contribution their
plants can make to the factory built
dwellings which General Houses
purposes to distribute. These eight
corporations and the fields assigned
TO them are:
Pullman Car and Manufacturing Cor
poration fabricated pressed steel
panels which can be assembled TO make
the walls. floors and roofs.
Concrete Engineering Company-Foun-
dations.
Curtis Companies, 1nc.-Interior wood
rim and mill work
General Electric Company-Electric
wiring. lighting and refrigeration.
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company-Glass
and paint
Container Corporation of America-In-
sulation including finished wall surfaces
ceilings and interior partitions.
American Radiator and Standard SAM
tary ration-Heating air condition
Ing. plumbing.
Thomas A. Edison. Inc.-Cement.
House of Pressed Steel
The product proposed for immedi-
ate distribution is a pressed steel
house in various models designed by
Howard T. Fisher of Chicago, the
architect and engineer of the group.
In the early stages of mass produc-
ton the price of the standard small
models will be kept below $500,
erected and fully equipped with
range, electrical refrigeration, FIX
lures and all other improvements,
and when the full economies of mass
production are achieved the price
may be reduced to $4,000.
Fortune believes that it would be
impossible to erect house of COM
parable size and quality for less than
$1,000 by the old handwork methods
which now prevail throughout the
building industry. Specifications will
not be announced until the July
issue of the Architectural Forum,
which appears July /.
Advertisement of such houses
says Fortune, may we'll crowd auto
mobile sales talks out of preferred
magazine pages for the next decade.
Instead Of floating power and syn
chronized mesh gear shifting, the
public of the later thirties will be
dazzled with the claim of co-ordi-
mated kitchens, thermostatic con-
troll and cooled and conditioned air.
The trade-marked house will COM
pete for space with the trade
marked radio or the trade marked
soup"
No Down Payment
Distribution will be conducted
rather through dealers of the pres
ent automobile dealer type than
through speculative old-line real
estate channels, each dealer main
tanning his own erection crews or
employing contractors to handle the
assembly at fixed rates.
Financing of sales will be handled
by distributors through an organiza-
ton of the type of the Commercial
Investment Trust Of New York as
an affiliated company. The $500
small houses will be sold without
down payment for $50 a month over
a fifteen-year period This charge
holds the interest to per cent and
cuts the financing cost to Il of l
per cent, eliminating the Is per
cent or 20 per cent premium which
now prevails on many mortgages.
Where the house and lot are sold
together, down p y m e t
equivalent to the value Of the land
will be required. 1t is proposed to
eliminate the old first and second
mortgage distinctions and simplify
the old financing set-up."
Cool in Summer
According to Fortune, General
Houses has been created to meet
a situation in which "at least one
half of Americas 100000 families
are not even decently housed"
Just as Ford tapped totally I'M
developed field for automobile sales
when he began manufacturing
automobiles for less than $780, so
General Houses hopes to tap a to-
tally undeveloped field for housing
when it offers f1rst-claSs Shelter on
the installment plan for $50 a
month.
The Fisher house according to
Fortune, gives complete protection
against weather, water, fire, vermin,
lightning and earthquake, and the
steel panels, when properly in
sulated, as in the copper bearing
steel in the Fisher house, offer a
house cool in summer and warm in
winter.