The Futuro House

There are many instances of Futuros being photographed with automobiles; for example the Royse City Futuro with an awesome 1929 Ford Model A or a DeLorean posed with the Carlisle Futuros among many others. This photo however was a first, this Futuro and perhaps the longest serving mode of transport, the horse.

The photo was posted to Instagram by depublicarchive on 080319. Our thanks to Gary Knox who alerted us to this interesting Instagram post.

This Futuro recently made an appearance in the local press. An article by James Fisher and Jason Minto appeared several times in local publications as well as online around the end of August 2016. The article was a rather general story about the Futuro and it's resident, Richard Garrett, and it really did not tell us anything new. The various iterations of the article were accompanied by a nice set of photos, both exterior and interior.

The photos below show the article as it appeared in The Daily Times (082716), The Sunday News Journal (082816), The Daily Times (083016) and The Daily Times (090216). These publications appear to be a part of the same group (and also part of the USA Today network). The Daily Times is online at delmarvanow.com (though I cannot seem to find this article on the site) and the News Journal is online at delawareonline.com; the Futuro article can be found here.

Interesting to note that the article appeared in print under three different headlines; "A 'Mad Men'-era home with Finnish and sci-fi flavor" (082716), "'Mad Men'-era home in Milton" (082816) and "Life in a UFO bubble in Milton" (083016 & 090216). Online the headline was "A 'Mad Men'-era home with Finnish, sci-fi flavor", ever so slightly different again. Our thanks to Gary Knox who first alerted us to the article online.

The various versions of the article were accompanied by some or all of the photos below. The originals of these photos, copyright James Fisher and Jason Minto, can be found online here.

An article by Ron MacArthur titled "2015: It's Still A Space Oddity" was published 062315 on CapeGazette.com. In this well researched article MacArthur provides some interesting information and history relating to the Milton and Houston Futuros as well as some historical information on New Dimensions Of Delaware Inc. a Futuro distributor "back in the day" owned and operated by Joe Hudson (who is also the owner of the Milton Futuro).

Information about New Dimensions Of Delaware Inc. can be found here and of course the Houston Futuro has its own page on this site.

As far as this particular Futuro is concerned the article informs us that the unit was originally one of New Dimensions' model homes and was displayed in Cave Colony, Delaware along Cave Neck Road, one of the distributor's earliest developments.

The Futuro has served in various roles over its years at the airfield. Those roles include spending time as a family guest house and serving as an office for Pilot Air which provided aerial transportation for Delaware River and Bay Pilots. The unit also sat vacant for several years before being restored by Joe Hudson during the 90's and now serves as a rental property.

Currently Richard Garrett who lives in Chicago but works at times in the Milton area rents the Futuro. Richard describes the rental as:

"... a great find for me and the price is right."

and goes on to liken living in a Futuro to living in an RV on vacation. Garrett adds that:

"Being plastic construction, rain sounds like Tupperware in a dishwasher."

Commenting on the construction of the Futuro Garrett points out that the sections of the unit are not heavy and are structurally weak but that the elliptical cross-section creates an overall structure that is strong and he observes that the "space ship" tolerates winds well.

On another note Gary A. Knox captured this great set of photos 070815. They are displayed here with Gary's permission - thanks Gary. We particularly like the black and white and partially black and white shots. The "filtered" shots are interesting and before you scroll to the last one grab your shades!

We received an email from John Gardoski a week or two ago in which John recounted some of his personal recollections of the history of this Futuro. John grew up just a short distance from the Futuro and still lives only about a half mile away. John tells me that:

"... this particular (Futuro) was used as the office for the airplane hangar it's next too, through the 1970's it was the office for Allen Chorman's aerial spray business ..."

John recalls how in the 1970's he and his friends would ride dirt bikes around the Futuro and the hanger area; the Futuro had colorful bi-plane curtains in those days. John continues:

"They stopped using it as an office around the mid 80's it sat empty for a long time, close to 20 years, then I noticed some guys working on and around it a few years ago and it appears to be fixed up and is rented out."

Apparently Joe Hudson, the owner, has never inhabited the Futuro and it has spent it's entire "life" as a rental.

John also sent the photo below; there are many photos of this Futuro and this one is not unusual as far as the Futuro itself is concerned but we particularly like the photo because the Futuro is "posed" with John's very cool Lincoln.

The photo below was shot by Nan Palmero on 072813. The photo, shown below under CC 2.0 license clearly shows signs of degradation in the body of this Futuro. This is not new and can be seen in many earlier photos but Nan's photo shows the degradation very clearly.

We received an email from Barney Vincelette, owner of the Houston Futuro this morning; Barney tells us that the Milton Futuro was located in Broadkill Beach until the late 1970's before being moved to its current location. A second Futuro in Broadkill Beach was demolished.

In a post in the Yahoo Group futurohouse dated 010513 Barney Vincelette, owner of the Houston Futuro dropped a little nugget of information relating to this Futuro. In the comment Vincelette tells us that this Futuro is owned by Joe Hudson:

"who was selling them until about 1977 when he sold me (Vincelette) my Futuro House in Houston, DE"

To us it is cool to learn that at least one of this individuals who was involved in the "business" of Futuro's retains ownership of one to this day.

For a Futuro that has been photographed as much as this one there is, surprisingly, almost no information on its history on the web; at least not that we have been able to find.

Google Earth has satellite imagery dated 032392 which clearly shows the Futuro on site so it has been at its present location for at least twenty years but other than that there is really no information out there other than a few blog posts and articles which have photos but no information:

• Four Corners Dark | Blog post with some nice photos
• roadsideamerica.com | Short post and one photo
• roadsidegalore.com | Photo blog post with two great photos

It seems likely that the Futuro is inhabited at least part of the time. Various photographs show blinds in different positions and regular day to day articles visible in the windows. A couple of photos show washing hanging out to dry beside the Futuro. A photo from vmanpics shows clearly that there is a well maintained and secure looking "inner door". In addition to the photographic evidence there is one comment in a forum post in Yahoo Groups which suggests that the owner uses the Futuro in the summer.

Other than that this unit is a mystery. If you have any information that could shed some light on the history of this Futuro please let us know.

In addition to taking the shot of the Milton Futuro featured at the head of this page kaszeta also took a couple of shots of a Futuro brochure that was displayed in the Blue Plate Diner in Lewes, DE just a short distance from the Futuro. They are displayed here courtesy of kaszeta.

The most recent photos we have seen of the Milton Futuro set the confirmed date to 092412 and were taken by vmanpics. They are reproduced here with permission.

We have always tended to use Google Maps/Street View and/or Google Earth for our research with Bing Maps only being a fall back on a few occaisions. However in the case of the Milton Futuro Google Street View only provides a very distant, unclear and grainy view of the Futuro whereas Bing Maps and its "Bird's Eye View" perspective provides this rather cool view of the Futuro.

There is certainly no shortage of photos of this Futuro. Check a few of them out using these links:

• Photo by Casa Highland | Image Date 061612
• Photo by d_j_critchley | Image Date 090709
• Geocaching Gallery | Images 112503 to 082212 (As at 092512)
• Photo by lavardera | Image Date 050504
• Photos by Morton Fox taken 122309 here, here and here
• Photos by Morton Fox taken 120802 here, here and here
• A very nice black & white by Robin Grotke | Image Date 061812
• Photo by tackyjulie | Image Date 092109

• Barney Vincelette
• 2015: It's Still A Space Oddity | CapeGazette.com
• delawareonline.com
• depublicarchive
• Gary A. Knox
• geekykhan
• John Gardoski
• Yahoo Groups

• Baltimore STYLE Magazine | 2007 | Cover
• The Daily Times | 082716 Issue | Page 5A
• The Daily Times | 083016 Issue | Page 5A
• The Daily Times | 090216 Issue | Pages 37 & 39
• The Sunday News Journal | 082816 Issue | Page 14A
• Primitive Skills Volume 4 2021 | Pages 7-19
• Weird Maryland: Your Travel Guide to Maryland's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets | Pages 115-116
• Weird N.J. Magazine | #23 | October 2004 Issue | Page 90

This photograph by lorrainejdion posted 031724.

The original photograph can be seen on Instagram here.