The UFO House, Royse City, TX, USA

A peculiarity from the late 1960's and early 1970's this spaceship like creation was the brainchild of a Finnish architect. It started out intended to be a ski cabin but turned into a collectors item that can be found across the world. Correctly known as the Futuro House these oddities are more often known as "UFO Houses". While driving along South Munson Road near Rockwall, TX you could be forgiven for thinking you had suddenly passed through a worm hole and were on an alternate ...

Please Note: You can find much more information about this and other Futuro Houses by going to "The Futuro House Project" our ongoing project to document all things Futuro.

THE "UFO HOUSE"
S Munson Rd, Royse City, TX 75189, USA [Approximate]
1304 Panferio Dr, Gulf Breeze, FL 32561, USA
Sumach Lake, Arbor Vitae, WI, USA [Approximate]
32°53'52.99"N 96°17'59.41"W [Texas]
30°20'26.44"N 87°6'11.13"W [Florida]

... earth somewhere as your attention is drawn by the "UFO House". Located in Royse City about 12 miles or so east of Rockwall, Texas the "UFO House" is actually one of many "Futuro" homes from the 1960's and 1970's.
Designed by Finnish architect Suuronen initially as a ski cabin it ended up being a prefabricated and easy to transport home which could be mass produced and transported anywhere. A Futuro home could be assembled / disassembled on site in a couple of days or, for the more adventurous [and probably wealthy], it could be airlifted in one piece. Produced during the late 1960's and early 1970's the Futuro then fell foul of the mid 1970's oil crisis. Being made of primarily of plastic the three fold increase in oil prices effectively destroyed the homes financial viability and production ceased.
Estimates of how many "UFO Houses" were manufactured and sold vary, a Google Search will show that, as do estimates for how many remain. The general consensus appears to be that some 100 were produced of which some 25 to 50 are likely surviving. The archINFORM database lists the locations of 30 of the units.
The Futoro house was the subject of a 1998 Finnish documentary; information about the film can be found here. The Futuro House also was the subject of a 2010 thesis submission to The Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Finland (available online here) by Anna-Maija Kuitunen. The thesis contains a wealth of information about the Futuro House including history, diagrams, images and construction methods.
The one on South Munson in Royse City is of particular interest to us as it is relatively close to home and we plan on replacing the photo below with one of our own in the not too distant future. We were also somewhat amused by the one in Pensacola Beach, Florida which happily found itself a home on top of another house.
There is also one situated on Sumach Lake in Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin, about 2 miles from Minocqua and, should you feel like a space adventure, this one is actually for rent. Check it out here.
We plan on researching and adding more of the Futuro houses in the future after we have researched and published the large database of sites we already have plans for so subscribe to our feeds and you will automatically be alerted when there are updates.