18 midcentury modern vacation homes — including a “Homarina” and a Japanese-style tea house

Snaps to Sarah for spotting this 1960s catalog of vacation houses promoting the use of Douglas Fir Plywood. It includes some pretty snappy — and in their way, hilarious — designs. “Novelty” vacation home ideas — my favorite is the Japanese tea house… but the Homarina, set right over the water… Home + Marina, get it?… is pretty great, too. Did anyone really build these, I wonder?

Here’s another vacation home for boaters — designed for the Johnson Motors Family Boating Bureau.” It has only 275 s.f. of livable space. This makes me remember growing up in Southern California in the 1960s. My dad loved to fish, and took us fishing up at Big Bear Lake quite often. Our pickup truck had a camper shell. I think that was much more part of the lifestyle — cheap, cheerful, outdoor vacations were much more the norm. I haven’t been seriously camping in 20 years, alas. I really used to like it…

The two images above are both from the “tea house”. The interior is so modern, all George Nelson-like. Inside, almost all these designs have Malm style fireplaces.

The two photos above: The awesome “Ranch Rambler” — with its row of small sleeping nooks all in a row, separated from the main living area by a deck. What a great concept — when you are on vacation at the lake, you don’t need big bedrooms… yet, it’s nice for everyone to have their own space. Alas, where is the kitchen?

Notice the inside/outside fireplace. These cowboy/cowgirl images seem kind of silly… archaic today… But I guess back in the day, out west was still, well, *Western.*

Simple yet stylish.

You get your A-Frame cottages, of course. Did anyone ever have one of these? They seem pretty practical to me.

This A-frame cabin is pretty snappy, too.

And this is terrific — a design for a cabin that you can expand over time. It starts as a “luxury campsite” and as you can afford it, you can expand it to include livable indoor space that ultimately presents like this:

So clever, those designers in the 1950s and 1960s. There is so much media these days about stylish “modern” small houses — the designs have been here for us all along!

See all 18 designs in the 1960 brochure via the MBJ Collection in the Building Technology Heritage Library . Thanks, Sarah!