Foam home

Or: Why I Love(d) Wisconsin.

When I was 9 my Grandmother and I drove from Montana to Virginia in order to visit family. I don't have many clear memories of the trip, but one standout was our stop in the Wisconsin Dells. To my 9-year-old self, this place was a wonderland. A Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, Old-timey photo places, tons of water parks, Mini Golf, Go Karts, strange and small shops lining the sidewalks where I managed to score a kick-ass and completely useless pair of moccasins, and a Visitor's Guide filled with hotels that featured themed rooms (or "fantasuites" as I now find they are termed). My tiny mind was blown by all the strangeness of what basically amounts to an entire town dedicated to being a tourist trap.

HOWEVER... beyond all of that, the one place that I visited whilst touring The Dells that will stick with me forever was Xanadu: House of the Future.





Looks just like the future, right?

From Wikipedia:
"The Xanadu Houses were a series of experimental homes built to showcase examples of computers and automation in the home in the United States. The architectural project began in 1979, and during the early 1980s three houses were built in different parts of the US: one each in Kissimmee, Florida; Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin; and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The houses included novel construction and design techniques, and became popular tourist attractions during the 1980s.

The Xanadu Houses were notable for being built with polyurethane insulation foam rather than concrete, for easy, fast, and cost-effective construction. They were ergonomically designed, and contained some of the earliest home automation systems. The Kissimmee Xanadu, designed by Roy Mason, was the most popular, and at its peak was attracting 1000 visitors every day. The Wisconsin Dells and Gatlinburg houses were closed and demolished in the early 1990s; the Kissimmee Xanadu House was closed in 1996 and demolished in October 2005."

I super loved this place. It was the first of the Xanadu houses, and I never visited another, though I've read that especially the Kissimmee house was more focused on the automation aspects. That would have been interesting to see but I think that home has been particularly well documented, both in books and in video, both from the heyday and more current times.

Xanadu Home of the Future with Designer Architect Roy Mason
Kissimmee Abandoned Tour Part 1

The basic idea behind the construction of these homes was an elevated form of papier-mâché. And while it isn't somewhere that I would live, for a variety of reasons (Inability to hang pictures, the never ending struggle to dust all that texture, and my love for architecture composed of sharp angles and clean lines, among other things) it was certainly an interesting concept. Unfortunately, it seems that spray foam is perhaps not the best material to use for 100% of a home's construction and without regular, and I imagine intense, maintenance it is all too easy for the structure to fall prey to decay, most notably, mold.

For my money, the imprecision of the final product, with it's irregular and organic forms, isn't worth the effort. This is something that I can only tolerate in art and nature, it seems.

That being said, again, as a child, I was enchanted by this strange building. The spire at far left was hollowed and filled with dancing lights. The bedroom was centered on a round bed that sat on a tall and thin pedestal, with a series of ascending columns to step up. And, there were passageways that only children could fit in, leading up to a play loft. It was quite magical and exciting as a first exposure to any alternative ideology about what a home could be.

Also, "fantasuites" are weird, and I'm pretty sure, disgusting.



Most reviews on TripAdvisor comment about how poorly lit each room is, and details the abundance of mirrors on nearly every surface. I would be beyond frightened to take a black light into any of these spaces.