Alcoa “Care-Free” aluminium home in Minnesota to open doors to tourists

The Alcoa 'Care-Free' aluminium home is a 1950s time capsule. The house is one of five well-preserved midcentury modern homes that will be open for touring on Oct. 13. 

This Alcoa "Care-Free" House was built by the aluminium major in St. Louis Park in 1958. Alcoa commissioned an architect to design a demo-house that would showcase aluminium as a perfect material for buildings. Only 24 such homes were built nationally, and only a handful of them are still maintained. Aluminium was comparatively a new material for such applications and Alcoa wanted to promote its versatility.

Alcoa hired architect Charles M. Goodman to design the aluminium home. The company had ambitious plans to build up to 50 such homes all around the country. Alcoa designed the houses with aluminium components to ensure “care-free living”, as aluminium is lightweight, durable and had anti-corrosive qualities unlike steel. The homes were built by local builders using kits supplied by Alcoa.

According to the book “Minnesota Modern: Architecture and Life at Midcentury” by Larry Millett, the plan did not work out as big as it was planned because building the aluminium homes proved much more expensive than estimated. Some builders even lost money and sued Alcoa. Alcoa finally could build 24 such homes nationally, out of which only a few remain by now.

The house now belongs to Mr and Mrs McChanes who bought the house a few years back and have renovated it. They got hold of the original sales brochure from the ’50s, have restored much of their home while maintaining its original character and the aluminium elements.

The home opens its doors for Docomomo’s Minnesota Modern Tour Oct. 13, which includes four other midcentury time-capsule homes in the Twin Cities.