Luxurious year-round paradise: The Story-Book Home of the Year was a 1950s dream house
Designed with modern science and reader feedback, this 1950s dream house featured everything a growing family could desire. Imagine swimming in a warm, indoor pool every night or lounging in a spacious, 28-foot living room. From a separate children’s wing to a master bedroom close to the kitchen, every detail catered to comfort and convenience.
The Story-Book Home was promoted as more than just a shelter — it was designed as a sanctuary for family bonding and relaxation. In the fifties, as America shifted away from renting and towards homeownership, this house represented a new era of affordable luxury, offering a lifestyle once reserved for royalty. Scroll on to read all about this amazing home (lots of photos, too!). It sounds pretty impressive, even by today’s standards!
1950s dream house: The Story-Book Home of the year! (1958)
From TV Radio Mirror magazine (September 1958)
The big family dream house that grows into an all-year-’round paradise at a price the average American family can afford today! Five exciting models, all with the same basic floor plan.
Go buy yourself a part of America — a piece of this blessed land — and build yourself a paradise for you and yours.
There is no safer, sounder, or saner thing to do. It will help insure your family’s future and increase Father’s earning power. It will help raise happier, healthier children… keep your family growing together through the years. And it will help preserve the love and romance that every normal man and woman needs for real happiness.
It is little wonder that America has changed, in less than a single generation; from a nation of renters or tenants to a nation of home-owners. More than half the readers of this magazine now own their own homes.
This fabulous Story-Book Home was designed by and for our readers, most of whom have large families with more babies still to come. To the ideas of our readers were added the new wonders of science, to give you a home where you can live in comfort and pride and privacy, and bask in “sunny” climate all-year-’round. You can even swim in “tropical moonlight” — lush, warm, and lazy — every single night of your life, summer and winter.
Loll around in privacy in the soft, caressing water of your own big indoor pool before you go to bed. And then — the deep sleep of a man and woman whose lives are full and wonderful.
This is the Story-Book Home, now available to any successful young American working man. who wants more for his family than any king could have had a few years back.
Read the thrilling story of this new young working man’s paradise — that you can afford today — or build in three easy steps for tomorrow. The following pages tell the whole wonderful story.
Four Bedrooms! Two Baths!
Separate children’s wing – 28-foot living room – family room with fireplace – 28-foot rumpus room
All this, and a kitchen, too, in the center of this “Dream House”. Owner-finished, only $18,700; custom-built, $24,800 complete with indoor pool!
Big family TV-room with adjoining 3 bedrooms and extra bath form separate children’s wing that parents asked for. Children enter from covered carport, leaving mud and wet clothes behind. Floor is easy-to-clean vinyl-asbestos Tile-Tex, made by the Flintkote Company.
Huge 28-ft. living room (with special dining area) is really just for Mother, Dad, and their friends. Looks through window walls, across water of indoor pool, into the garden. Walls in rich cherry Weldwood and washable Kalistron (optional) promise to last a lifetime with no upkeep.
Three bedrooms for children — In daytime, Kalistron-covered folding wall opens two bedrooms into one large room for choo-choo trains, games, and fun. At night, wall separates rooms again (with double-deckers sleeping four). Third bedroom can be used as a guest room when needed.
Master bedroom panelled in Korina Weldwood — is just where mothers wanted it — close to the kitchen, and close to the children, too. You can come and go to your kitchen without being seen when the doorbell rings… also you can step from bedroom to outdoor terrace through jalousied French doors.
And… your huge indoor heated swimming pool!
The indoor pool requires little or no work… the filtering and cleaning are almost entirely automatic. Filtered water requires changing less than once a year. Then you can use the water on your lawn or garden during a dry spell, and you don’t waste a single penny!
Any woman would envy the mother in this Story-Book Home.
Here’s the story of how it builds family love, children’s popularity, better discipline. The kids are pals, but not underfoot… Here too are marvelous new ways it makes family living easier for Mother… And how the fabulous, heated indoor swimming pool can help pay for itself.
The Story-Book Home is not just a shelter, like so many houses. It’s a family kingdom where all members of the family can work and play — together when they want to be, or quietly alone, if they prefer.
The parents’ portion can always be ready for guests. Teenagers can take over in their own wing of the house. Children can build their friendships at home, instead of roaming to find their fun. Mother and Dad can have a social life without spending hard-earned cash in town. Any day — every day — can hold the glamour of a summer resort.
The soft “tropical” climate of the indoor pool is for all to revel in day or night. Most families spend more money in just two weeks’ vacation each year than the entire cost of financing their swimming pool at 6% interest! And swimming, as exercise, is worth a fortune to family health.
Some mothers and fathers give neighborhood swimming lessons and make the pool pay for itself many times over. Some organize swimming clubs, and everybody else chips in with the refreshments.
The house has no wasted space, no wasted motion for Mother. And only the finest materials! American-Standard bathrooms, in lovely colors; folding walls made — of wonderful, washable Kalistron, that looks like leather and lasts longer; paneled walls of beautiful V-Plank Weldwood that will stay beautiful for the life of your home; floors covered with extra durable, easy-to-clean Tile-Téx vinyl, and in the living room with soft, quiet Tile-Tex rubber-tile, that needs no waxing or polishing.
Husbands will recognize the value of Seal-Tab hurricane-resistant roof shingles by Flintkote; fireproof Van Packer chimney with round, prefabricated flue, saving time and money; the pool walls and ceilings moisture-proofed with a scientific plastic (polyethylene sheet).
No humidity problems in this swimming pool home. You make your own climate. When you want moisture added to dry, heated winter air, crack open the sliding glass door to the pool. To shut out moisture, just keep the door closed. Furniture never “dries out” one minute, “swells up” the next. Doors and drawers don’t stick or bind.
Read more and see more on the color pages that follow. Send for a complete set of plans. Then list your old house “for sale,” and you’ll be on your way to a new, happier life — now possible for almost any successful young working man and his family!
MORE: 9 colorful mid-century kitchen remodels & retro floorplans from 1954
More 1950s home features
Westinghouse refrigerator and freezer (optional) under luncheon counter make meal serving and entertaining easy.
Kalistron-covered folding wall divides double bedroom for sleep. Kalitex wall covering can be scrubbed.
Extra children’s bath with American-Standard tub that saves hot water. “Coronation” Micarta walls, with their smooth, gleaming surface, Kalistron wall covering, and vinyl Tile-Tex floor make clean-ups quick and easy.
In this big 28-ft. rumpus room, bright and cheery with (optional) V-Plank Weldwood panelling and asphalt Tile-Tex floors, you could also set up a work bench for Dad. Fun for all, gives kids extra play space, keeps living rooms clean.
No stoop, no stretch, no step-ladder! Mother can reach every towel and blanket in this linen closet, as she stands on stairs to children’s wing!
In this luxurious combination bathroom, with its American- Standard plumbing fixtures and marble-like Micarta vanity and walls, hubby can shave as wife applies make-up.
Now it’s a powder room — simply by closing the folding divider! Guests enter from living room panelled in rich cherry Weldwood.
Here is a living room in Colonial model, with pool area converted to indoor garden. Soft rubber Tile-Tex floor is comfortable underfoot, requires no waxing, and helps to deaden rumpus-room noise. If you prefer to add your indoor pool or garden later, you can put a flagstone terrace just outside the sliding glass doors.
Even Hollywood movies never showed you a better home! Four other models to choose from
This fabulous Story-Book Home was designed to satisfy almost every taste in architecture. The five versions have the same basic floor plan — and can all be built for approximately the same price. Also, all can be built in three stages, except the 20th Century model.
This model has an extra dining room, and costs slightly more than the others. The double garages shown, and the over-size swimming pool, if desired, are extra, of course, and require large plots… Complete plans and specifications for each model are available. Houses will fit on even 75- x 100-ft lots.
If you’re too old to swim and the children have gone, pool area converts into a handsome dining room and garden where you can entertain with your Community silver and best china. There is plenty of room for all your guests.
This shimmering “tropical paradise” — your 32-foot pool — lets you swim and sun-bathe even in coldest January. Helps Dad relax after work… Makes home a teenagers’ center… Keeps Mom in all the family fun.
This beautiful indoor garden, and the dining room shown above, can be built instead of the pool — or converted later by simply filling pool with earth and adding a flagstone floor yourself. Keeps outdoor beauty indoors ail year.
Regency — a massive looking house in traditional design. Side-lighted front door, huge bay window, and bright shutters give it real Story-Book Home distinction and character.
Cottage colonial — Bright and white with its wide bay window, shutter-windowed children’s wing, and brick swimming pool wing… It builds easily complete, or in 3 stages.
Cape Cod Colonial — Gray shingles, mullioned windows, and shutters capture the enduring warmth of this popular style… Yet it’s modern as tomorrow — a real dream house.
20th Century — Here’s beautiful, modern styling that will stay “new” for years. Note how living room and pool area blend brick, glass, and redwood into a magnificent exterior.
Mother watches children swim as she gets lunch. Westinghouse electronic oven, range, dishwasher (optional) are only a step away.
In this efficient kitchen, all Westinghouse deluxe appliances are within reach. Micarta walls, lunch bar and work counters, Tile-Tex floor, make clean-ups easy.
Magic “one-way” window lets Mother look in on sick child without leaving her bed! Panelled door over window for sound-proofing.
Children go from the pool through Weldwood paneled, Tile-Tex floored rumpus room. Living area stays dry.
Cook-Out entertaining is easy, and weather-proof, with this barbecue in the carport-terrace. Wonderful for kids’ parties and picnics, too! If adjoins TV-game room.
Under a sun-lamp, you relax on the “chaise lounge” that covers the basement entrance to the pool — and keep your tan all year! Even Dad will enjoy “sunning” himself here.
DON’T MISS: 150 vintage 50s house plans used to build millions of mid-century homes we still live in today
One Response
This house would be impressive even by today’s standards. Though it’s interesting that a contemporary house would be furnished with colonial-style furniture…