Last week I shared a couple potential future luxury slum projects and I wanted to share a couple more today. Let me know what you think.
The Raleigh Lustron House
The Raleigh Lustron house was moved from GotNo Farm outside of Raleigh and is now located downtown Raleigh, just a few blocks from the Downtown Luxury Slum.
This home is 1020 square foot house on a 0.09 acre lot and was built manufactured in 1949.
It features prefabricated enameled metal-panel walls and roof, aluminum tripartite casement windows, built-in pass-through metal China cabinet, bedroom vanity, and trellis downspout porch post.
Assembly required.
As veterans returned after world WWII, they got married and started making babies at record-breaking rates leading to a housing shortage. The solution was obviously prefabricated porcelain enameled steel houses.
The designs emphasized efficiency of space with easy to clean surfaces, smaller more functional and flexible rooms, a sanitary environment, and the inherently low maintenance of both the interior and exterior elements of the structure.
Fewer than 2,500 of these Lustron houses were built between 1947 and 1950.
The Raleigh Lustron House is the desert tan two-bedroom Deluxe Westchester model and originally cost less than $7000.
Rehabilitation of this all-metal luxury slum would involve assembly (It was disassembled before moving and the panels are currently being stored off site). All 3300 pieces are numbered and there is an instruction manual to follow.
Once renovation is complete, this house would offer Jetsons like care-free living – no painting required, no termites. It is walking distance from everything downtown Raleigh has to offer. Given it’s central location and smaller size, it would be perfect for a hipster millennial that’s not ready for suburban life. Alternatively, it could be used as a short-term vacation rental.
The pictures below are from an already rehabilitated Lustron house in Minneapolis.
The Wine Country House
Next on our list of potential luxury slums is the Wine Country House.
This beauty is a 3,234 square foot Victorian house built in the early 19th century on approximately 1 acre of land in Duplin County, the heart of North Carolina’s wine industry. The home started as a two room house but additions were made in the mid 19th century and late 19th century to add more rooms, a second story, and porches.
The two-story front porch retains its beautiful sawnwork details with turned spindle porch posts.
Interior features include diagonal beadboard wainscoting in the central hall on both the first and second stories,
original windows and doors,
wood mantels in the parlors,
original hardwood floors and original baseboards and door moldings.
There are four large bedrooms upstairs, the potential for a master bedroom downstairs, and a large sun room that could make a beautiful light-filled kitchen.
It’s not obvious from the pictures, but the property has been vacant for many years and has suffered significantly from neglect. The property will need a complete rehabilitation including carpentry and cosmetic repairs, installation of all new systems (plumbing, electrical, and HVAC), structural stabilization of the porches, structural repairs in the sun room, roof repairs, and updates to the existing bath and kitchen or more likely moving the location of the kitchen to accommodate a more modern kitchen and the addition of more bathrooms.
This property would make a lovely bed and breakfast where guests could recover from drinking muscadine wine.
So what do you think?
Downtown Luxury Slum 
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