A half century ago the name meant "luster on steel." It still does.

From 1948 to 1950 the Lustron Corp. built about 2,600 houses, mostly in the Midwest, including about a dozen in Kansas City. They made the homes entirely of metal coated with baked-on porcelain enamel. Think White Castles. Think the exterior of your refrigerator. Think nearly indestructible.

Lustrons were part of the post-World War II evolution toward manufactured housing, and the passion of their creators lent a house-of-the-future look. Some offered radiant heat from the ceiling. Many came equipped with a quirky combination dishwasher/clothes washer. Lustrons were, the company proclaimed, permanent, fireproof and rodent-resistant.

Those who live in them today share a fervor for Lustrons -- their historic value, their design and the fact that they require no painting -- inside or out -- ever.

Before Richard Rankin knew anything about Lustrons, one at 47th and Lloyd streets in Kansas City, Kan., caught his eye. "I'd like to live in a house like that," he thought at the time. "There wouldn't be any maintenance."

Since 1994 he has lived in one of two Lustrons in the 8400 block of Jarboe Street.

"I love my little house," he said.

Living in a Lustron simplifies your life.

"I don't have steps to climb, I don't have a basement to mess with...It runs about $50 a month for gas in the winter," Rankin said. While some area Lustrons have been remodeled, you can usually recognize one by its square metal siding and metal roof.

In some cities the little metal houses are riding a wave of retro popularity. In others, where neighborhoods are changing, the real estate a Lustron sits on has become more valuable than the house and they're being torn down.

In Kansas City they sit quietly in older neighborhoods, little changed.

A group of three Lustrons can be found on Porte Cimi Pas another name for 88th Street. The house at 2 Porte Cimi Pas is said to be the first Lustron built in Kansas City. And, Kansas City Kansas Community College has adopted a Lustron.

Designers squeezed as much function as possible into the 1,000-square-foot houses. China pass-throughs and built-in bookcases and dressers were typical. Pocket doors slide into the walls.

Today Lustrons often have a modern furnace that sits on the floor in a central utility room. Original designs, however, called for the heater to be mounted at the ceiling level.

When it came time for architect John Ware to renovate his Lustron at 3611 W. Roanoke Drive, he put the furnace in the attic. The Lustron's radiant heating design blows air through a series of baffles and warms the metal ceiling tiles.

The warmth radiates into the house and touches everything from the walls to the floors, his wife, Carmen, said.

"You'd think that without it blowing on you, you'd have to turn the heat up, but you don't. At 69 or 70, it's very comfortable in here."

Air conditioning wasn't an option in the original design, so some owners use window units. Others have central air conditioning, but because the houses were built on slabs, installation is through the walls and ceilings.

But the innovative Thor combination dishwasher-clothes washers are long gone -- they proved unreliable, said Thomas Fetters, who wrote The Lustron Home, published this year.

The machines were top-loaders.

"Both tank-type agitators were stored within (under) the Lustron sink and were exchanged depending on the job to be done," Fetters' book says.

Mary Louise Snitzmier remembers using one. She has lived in a Lustron in Kansas City since 1949, and her husband, John, once worked for the company.

He sold Lustrons in Missouri and some adjoining states for about nine months. Then, "he got a telegram one day, telling him he didn't have a job," she said.

While its design was innovative -- the houses were partly assembled in the plant and could be erected in about two weeks -- the company was going bankrupt.

Mary Louise Snitzmier remembers a company that had more employees than it had work for them to do. "They spent money like water," she said.

A lot of that money came from the U.S. government.

Strandlund's dream

After World War II the federal government was regulating construction and had a tight grip on the steel supply. At the same time the government was trying to encourage homebuilding for the thousands of returning soldiers who were looking forward to marrying and raising a family.

In August of 1946 Carl Strandlund went to Washington, D.C., to get the steel he needed for his company to get back to making enamel-coated gas stations and hamburger stands.

The engineer and inventor was denied that request, but he told officials his porcelain enamel panels could also be used to build houses. In September he returned to Washington with sketches of the all-metal house that would become the Lustron.

The government approved a $15.5 million loan, and production at the Curtiss-Wright plant in Columbus, Ohio, was under way by late 1948.

According to Lustron records, the height of production was in July 1949 when the plant made 375 houses. Pressure, however, was building on the company that continued to prop up its finances with more government loans.

The Korean War was starting, and the Navy wanted the building for military purposes, Fetters said.

"As soon as the company went under, they started making fighter jets," at the Lustron site, he explained. More pressure came from people who thought the business would return a tidy profit and sought to control it.

"In the middle of '49, the pressure started being applied to repay" the original government loan, Fetters said. Then the layoffs began, and in February 1950 the foreclosure suit came.

Making a change

But the Lustron's design remains a wonder.

When John Ware decided to make more room in his house, he took down a wall that formed the utility room. The process required "a screwdriver, a wrench and no dust mask." There was no plasterboard to deal with and little dirt or cleanup.

Fetters' book describes how the panels fit together:

"One edge was shaped somewhat like a `5,' with the matching edge more like a `7.' The straight edge of the latter was designed to fit into the open slot of the former with the metal-to-metal contact restricted by a plastic gasket material."

In the Wares' kitchen, metal cabinets were replaced and new appliances were installed. An original Lustron feature still rules: The kitchen exhaust fan in the wall near the ceiling hums quietly and is very effective, Carmen Ware said.

John Ware raves about the plumbing: "I guess you have to have a certain aesthetic to appreciate plumbing, but it's fabulous," he said. Lustron touted its all-copper pipes, and they were partly assembled at the factory under controlled conditions. No sweating the pipes together on site with solder.

Many aspects of Lustron production were "ahead of their time," Mary Louise Snitzmier said.

The company ran up against building code restrictions -- at the time, Atlanta barred copper plumbing and Chicago required plaster ceilings and walls. Fetters' book also pointed to advances such as a change in the amount of heat needed to make the enamel surfaces. The process changed the way appliances are made.

The company even toyed with putting truck trailers loaded with Lustron parts on rail cars but couldn't interest the rail lines. The concept, now called piggybacking, was 20 years ahead of its time, Fetters said.

Quirky but lovable

Owners and renters generally overlook the Lustron's quirks for its practicalities.

Some complain, however, about their house being cold in winter. Others look for innovative ways to hang pictures on the metal walls.

JoAnn King has noticed a peculiar backwardness about the Lustron at 47th and Lloyd streets. Light switches are upside down and some cabinet doors seem to be oriented opposite the direction they should be.

But security is no problem. The all-metal doors and casings and heavy-duty windows mean you're sunk if you lock yourself out, she said.

And then there's the custom-made aspect. John Ware replaced his tub, but not before altering the space where it fits. Lustron tubs, made in the plant to fit the houses, are an unusual 5-foot, 2-inches long while today's standard for tubs is 5 feet.

Ware is pondering a way to make more room for what he and his wife hope will be a growing family. Meantime, the small house makes it easy to keep up with Pearl, the couple's young daughter.

"It's amazing how many people think they would be happier with just a little more house," Carmen Ware said, "but it's just not true."