Futuro House: An Earthbound Cosmic Romance

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This vintage flyer saucer Space Age tiny home is known as the Futuro Home. It was designed by architect Matti Suuronen in the 1960s. This home is located in Idyllwild, CA. — The Futuro House hiding in a suburban backyard. (Photo by 5chw4r7z/Creative Commons)

I dig space, Star Trek, and flying saucers. Luckily for me, and all of us really, it seems humanity is aspiring to explore the cosmos more and more these days. Until we have a colony on Mars, we must be satisfied with exploring the space-imagination of artists, and, of course, with living vicariously through Jean Luc-Picard and Spock.

My favorite representation of flyer saucer space travel in the real world, is the Futuro House designed in the 1960s by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. They were originally designed to be ski lodges, but over the years have been used as restaurants, homes, a travel agency, a green room for performing artists, and even a VIP room for a strip club! It seems romantic notions of flyer saucers know no bounds in the human imagination.

The Space Age ski lodge features a ring of oval windows, a fireplace in the center, and is complete with a groovy, retractable staircase. The structure was crafted from fiberglass-reinforced, polyester plastic, making it lightweight and easy to heat up following a cold day on the slopes.

Despite the original intention of the architect to create a ski lodge, the Futuro House was adaptable to most terrains and was marketed as an affordable and stylish housing solution. With its functional layout, including a bathroom, kitchen, living room, and a bedroom that sleeps six, this retro gem could hold its own in today’s tiny home market, and offer more style than the boring architecture plaguing the modern tiny home trend.

This vintage flyer saucer Space Age tiny home is known as the Futuro Home. It was designed by architect Matti Suuronen in the 1960s. — Futuro House layout from a brochure circa 1970. (Photo by Ketzirah Lesser & Art Drauglis/Creative Commons)

The oil crisis of 1973 caused oil prices to soar and the manufacture of plastic to become very expensive. The Futuro, originally mean to be an affordable housing option, increased drastically in price. For this reason, the line of Futuros was limited to fewer than 100 homes. According to enthusiasts, only 60 of these houses remain. Visit this site for a careful mapping of Futuro House whereabouts.

After exploring the whereabouts of these saucer homes, I discovered there is one in the nearby mountain community of Idyllwild, California. Although the location is kept secret for privacy purposes, you can check out the California pad in the music video for the song “No Needs” by The Entrance Band:

(No Needs from The Entrance Band on Vimeo.)

So, if you are like me, you are planning and scheming to get one of these spaceships parked in your backyard. My husband and I would like to turn one into a gallery for our kaleidoscope collection. What would you do with a Futuro House of your own?

For the flying saucer enthusiast, here are some more resources to feed your cosmic desires:

The Futuro House: A website dedicated to all things Futuro, including photos, histories, and locations of accessible Futuro Houses!

Venturo Houses: Futuristic pre-fabricated homes designed by Matti Suuronen, the Finnish architect behind the Futuro home.

Sanzhi UFO Houses: Construction on these futuristic pod houses were started in 1978, but was abandoned in 1980 due to a series of unfortunate circumstances. They were demolished to make way for modern tourist accommodations in 2010.

Futuristic vintage pod houses called the Sanzhi UFO Houses in Taiwan. — Sanzhi UFO Houses. (Photo by Carrie Kellenberger/Wiki)

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