If you wanted to design The House of The Future, what materials would you use? You might not suggest spray foam insulation; after all, it’s meant to be used in between walls that have already been built. But architects Bob Masters and Roy Mason saw the potential to create incredibly futuristic homes out of the spray foam and that’s exactly what they did in the late 1980s. The Xanadu Houses, named for the opulent palaces described in the classic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” were show homes and tourist attractions that represented a very unique vision of the future of real estate.

The houses were designed by Bob Masters, an early advocate of using rigid insulation as a building material. He was convinced that these houses were the future, and set out to build a few show homes to attract public interest. The first Xanadu house was opened in Wisconsin Dells in 1979 and 100,000 people visited it during its first summer. Masters believed that these houses could be more ergonomic, introduce computer automation, and increase energy efficiency and usability. Over the next few years, there were several more Xanadu Houses built in locations all over the country.

Construction of a Xanadu started with a poured concrete slab base, and a 40-foot wide tension ring erected to anchor the roof above. Then a gigantic vinyl balloon, pre-shaped into the necessary dimensions, was attached to the ring; once fully inflated, the interior was sprayed with polyurethane foam. The quick-hardening foam was applied in several layers until a 5-6 inch shell was produced, which only took a few hours.

The balloon was removed after the form had fully cured. All of the main rooms of a Xanadu house were created this way, and connected halls constructed out of wire mesh and foam. Windows, doors, and skylights were cut into the hardened foam, and the interior was coated with fireproof material that also gave the walls a smooth finish. The Xanadu houses were like bubbles rising from the Earth; rather than the rigid angles of conventional home design, they operated on an open-floor concept and were filled with waves, curves, and round shapes.

The Kissimmee House, by far the most popular of the scattered Xanadus, was opened in 1983 in hopes of cashing in on the newly built Epcot Center in nearby Walt Disney World. The Kissimmee Xanadu was automated by Commodore microcomputers; in the kitchen, for instance, the ‘autochef’ would cook food at a preset time, and even tele-shop for missing items. Chores were eliminated; the master bedroom could control everything from the coffee pot to the television remotely. A robotic voice would even warn you about trespassers on the property; something right out of science fiction. Visitors were assured that this was what their homes would be like in the very near future.

But this reliance on technology ended up being a death knell; as the technology became obsolete through the 1990s and visitors stopped coming. In 1996, the last of the Xanadu houses, the Kissimmee, was the last to close. Despite attempts to make use of the space, by 2001 it had fallen into serious disrepair and was finally demolished in 2005. The notion of a spray foam house is still floating around among futurists and experimental architects who point out that Xanadu’s failures had more to do with technological issues more than structural ones. But so far, no one has really tried to make an all-foam home a reality; it seems that spray foam will remain a humble worker behind the scenes, working from the inside to protect homes and occupants from the elements.