No one could ignore the shimmering aluminum house in Southwest Portland’s Montclair neighborhood.

The single-story rectangular with grape Kool Aid-colored walls was easily identified as a product of the Jet Age, a revolutionary time in design that fueled the imagination of mid-century modern masters.

The 1957 house with transparent walls and sliding glass doors was out of the ordinary, even in an era renowned for breaking the rules. It was one of only 24 Alcoa Care-free model homes built across the country to showcase the versatility of aluminum.

The durable metal, abundant after World War II, was used for almost everything, from the slightly pitched roof and ribbed siding to light switches and non-rustable nails.

But Oregon’s only Alcoa Home is now gone.

New owners had the fabled dwelling taken down in early September. The only way now to see one of the rare, experimental aluminum structures is to leave the state.

Ways to save spectacular Oregon homes from the wrecking ball; could demolished Alcoa Home have been protected or salvaged?

Whether it’s a stained-glass window or an entire house, you can find resources to preserve it.

Grove Hunt of Grove Development in Portland was hired by the owners to prepare the quarter-acre lot for new construction. He said the 64-year-old house was not viable and that his clients saved some items before it was razed.

Cheryl Luckett, who lived in the house for 18 years, said she is in shock at the demolition.

Luckett sold the home in 2016 to home restorers Michael and Nancy Meden, who spent about $200,000 to revitalize the interior spaces while honoring the original footprint. Behind-the-wall work were also made to upgrade the electrical, plumbing and heating system.

The home may not have lived up to its name as being carefree, “but it was a joy to live in,” said Nancy Meden, who cried when she heard her former home was gone.

She said it would have been easier for her to accept if it melted in a fire. “Instead, this was an intentional loss,” she said. “Not to be overly dramatic, but it’s like a premeditated crime.”

She said the destruction isn’t about a singular mid-century style house. “It’s a community,” said Meden. “We all support each other. When one goes down, we all feel it.”

While they lived in there, the Medens removed the original asbestos floor tiles and remediated the hazardous materials as required by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Although the paint was tested for lead and none was found, they replaced the drywall. New walls were either clad in grasscloth or received fresh paint, she said.

They installed a deck outside the master bedroom and new landscaping to extend the blurred boundaries between inside and out, a hallmark of modern living.

After the Medens completed work to “breathe new life” into the aging dwelling, as Nancy described it, they received an offer without putting the property up for sale. It sold in December 2020 for $880,000.

Nancy presented the new owners with stacks of literature that underscored the significance of Oregon’s only Alcoa Care-free Home, a structure so full of “Mad Men” swank that 500 people came to see it during the 2018 Portland Modern Home Tour.

Nine months after the home was sold for the last time, an excavator grabbed and crumpled the aluminum roof and knocked down the walls and ceilings.

A truck hauled everything away, including decorative window grilles woven of peacock blue aluminum rods and a royal blue corrugated front door. Nothing was left behind except dirt at the top of the driveway.

Oregon's only Alcoa Care-free model home of 24 across the U. S. to showcase the versatility of aluminum was demolished in September 2021.Acquired by The Oregonian

“I understand that sometimes you have to let things go but that was a piece of history,” Luckett said. “They could have deconstructed it and saved everything.”

Nigel Maister, who owns a Alcoa Care-free Home in Rochester, New York, also wanted all the original elements salvaged. The irreplaceable pieces would have been treasured and used by other Alcoa homeowners.

“The simplicity, efficiency and thoughtfulness of the design, overall and in its details, is remarkable, and makes living in one of these homes both a privilege and a pleasure,” he added.

Nicole Possert, executive director of the preservation organization Restore Oregon, said the loss of the home is devastating for Oregon’s mid-century modern heritage.

“Our state desperately needs more designations and more protections for rare, unique resources like this Alcoa home,” she said.

Homeowners who want to ensure their property is protected can obtain a historic conservation easement, said Possert. Another option is for neighborhoods and communities to work together to identify, document and designate historic homes or districts, she added.

Read more ways to save spectacular Oregon houses from the wrecking ball

Oregon's only Alcoa Care-free model home was an experimental aluminum structure with decorative window grilles woven of peacock blue aluminum rods or a royal blue corrugated front door.Redfin

After World War II, the Aluminum Company of America, now Alcoa, was searching to sell its “miracle metal” beyond cars, trucks, aerospace and defense. Construction was one way to build business, so in the mid-1950s, the company opened a residential sales division and hung its hopes on the middle-class housing boom.

First step: Invent new ways to use the metal in an easy-to-live-in, easy-to-clean modern home. Alcoa gathered the brightest design minds to a conference chaired by Portland architect Pietro Belluschi.

Belluschi was then the dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and a big believer in aluminum.

He achieved international prominence primarily for the design and construction of the first glass-and-aluminum curtain-walled edifice, the 1948 Commonwealth Building (originally the Equitable Savings and Loan Association Building) in downtown Portland.

Belluschi’s son, Portland architect Anthony Belluschi, said that his father described aluminum as having a new kind of beauty, “clean, strong and straightforward.”

Just as U.S. Steel promoted its products by sponsoring the architect-designed Case Study House Program in California, Alcoa saw its corrosion-resistant aluminum desirable for the house of the future.

Architect Charles M. Goodman of Washington, D.C., was hired to design the Alcoa Care-free Home with indoor-outdoor features made possible by large skylights, plenty of windows and sliding glass doors that opened to the yard or the interior courtyard.

From the entrance’s twin windows, the house flowed from one room into another. The kitchen was in the middle, wrapped by the living, dining and family rooms. The Portland house had three bedrooms and three bathrooms.

On the other side of the courtyard was a wall concealing a carport and, as originally designed behind it, a large workshop.

Maister said the floor plan, especially the kitchen as the central hub, anticipated the open-plan design popularized later in the 1950s and allowed for meal preparation to be integrated into family activities and suburban social life.

“The ‘carefree’ nature of the conception of the house not only looked toward easing the housekeeping responsibilities of the 1950s woman, but perhaps can equally be seen as anticipating the greater movement of women into the workforce and away from domestic duties that emerged post WWII,” said Maister. “The upward mobility of the expanding middle class can be seen in things like the two-car carport or garage.”

A press release in 1957 said Alcoa wanted to create the “greatest change in residential building materials in centuries.”

The company hoped to sponsor a local builder in all 50 states to construct an Alcoa Care-free Home. But it succeeded in executing Goodman’s plan only in two dozen “strategic locations” in 16 states.

Portland builder W. C. Bauman took on the challenge and erected the eye-catching modern house among traditional homes in the Montclair neighborhood.

Joseph Eichler in California, Robert Rummer in Oregon and other modern home builders across the country used wood post-and-beam construction as an economical answer to rocketing demand for easier living.

Each Alcoa Home, however, was designed with 75,000 pounds of aluminum.

The metal was used for almost everything except the concrete foundation, brick fireplace and chimney, laminated plastic counters and wood finishes such as cypress planks on the ceilings. All the windows, sliding glass doors and tub enclosures were framed in aluminum.

And expenses rose. What was initially promoted as an affordable $25,000 dwelling turned out to cost almost double.

In the end, aluminum couldn’t compete with the low cost and familiarity of wood. But it did bring progress to the home building industry. Today, the use of energy-efficient, recyclable aluminum helps projects qualify for eco-friendly building status.

Maister said the materials in the Alcoa houses celebrated “the light, the airy and open — in short: the modern” and the use of bright and idiosyncratic color finishes brought a vivid aesthetic into what had been a staid and conservative home decorating palette.

“For me, Alcoa Care-free Homes represented a moment of optimism and forward thinking in the approach to vernacular design in 20th century America,” he said. The design and materials, “consciously or unconsciously, anticipated the changing demographics and nature of the American family.”

You can see the original 1957 Alcoa Care-free Home brochure here.

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