During World War II, there were serious material shortage — rationing — and little home construction. Except for: Defense housing — housing for employees working in the defense industry. My main man Royal Barry Wills — the most influential residential architect of the 20th century, whom most Americans have never heard of — designed one such housing project — in Springfield, Mass., in 1942. I recently scored some press materials.
Materials include these these credits:
Defense Housing Project
Springfield, Mass., 19023
Royal Barry Wills, Architect, Boston, Mass.
Hayden, Harding & Buchanan, Engineers. — Hallam L. Movius, Landscape Architect
And the news release says:
Royal Barry Wills
SPRINGFIELD HOUSING PROJECT
On January 27, 1942, bids are to be received on the new Defense Housing Job of 300 dwelling units to be located on St. James Avenue, Hobart and Carew Streets, Springfield, Massachusetts, according to Royal Barry Wills, of Boston, the Architect of this Project.
There are 90 buildings, 30 of 1-story and 60 of 2-story design. The 10story houses accommodate two families and the 2-story houses accommodate four. All of the buildings are part brick — some with brick ends and some with brick fronts. This combination of brick and wood construction gives an interesting architectural treatment.
This particular Project will be well landscaped and surrounded by pleasant lawns and play areas, with a Playing Field at the end of the Project, and an Administration Building for community functions. Smaller children will have a Play Yard and a Play Pool, where they may enjoy supervised play.
The interiors of the dwelling units are all arranged with the latest equipment, using electric refrigerators, gas ranges and oil head. The dwellings all have living-room, kitchen and bath, and one, two or three bedrooms.
January 22, 1942
I got excited, so I sent a note to my contacts at Royal Barry Wills Associates, Inc., which is still rockin’ the architectural design, in Boston, Mass. I heard back from Richard, Royal’s son, who runs the firm. He said:
Hi Pam:Great find on the Springfield Housing project.That’s about all Dad had going during that time plusA few apartment renovationsThat is when he wrote some of his books.Best: Richard
I love learning more about Royal Barry Wills!
Tracie@MiddleClassModern says
This is very similar to housing that was built incredibly quickly during WWII for workers at Marietta’s Bell Bomber plant (now Lockheed Martin!). Most of it survived until the last fifteen years or so, but now only one little collection is left. Marietta reused it as public housing, but they were really well built little brick duplexes.
Anna Best says
I love posts like this (and the hollywood sketch one that follows it). One of my bucket list items is to own a Royal Barry Wills home from the 1940s or 1950s.
MARY says
Anna
Do you have the RBW house yet?
My bucket list has two houses on it, RBW’s own house in Winchester, on page 25 of More Houses for Good LIving, and his Duxbury house on page 100. One for summer, one for winter. No chance of those bucket items ever happening.Good thing, since I can’t handle a lot of snow. Of all my books, this is the one I’d have buried with me.
Why wasn’t I born rich! Sigh.
But I’m kicking myself that my sister lived near springfield and i never knew his houses were in the neighborhood.
Nutella says
Cool stuff! This development post dates the federal housing planned city projects in Greenbelt, MD, Greenhills, OH, and Greendale, WI. I live in Greenbelt (in one of the original 885 homes built around 1937). An additional 1,000 homes were built by the government as wartime housing in 1941.
http://www.greenbeltmd.gov/about_greenbelt/history.htm
Robin, NV says
I work at a military base that was commissioned during World War II.
In town, we still have a small neighborhood of FHA-designed homes built for the war effort. They’re mostly rentals but are in surprisingly good condition. The population of my little town doubled during the war.
I’m also pretty sure that Tom’s Trailer Park here in Fallon started out as war time housing. The Navy brought in about 100 mobile homes and I have a feeling a lot of them were set up at the trailer park. Speaking of which, RR should look into mid century trailer housing. It didn’t have the stigma that it does today and some of the old trailers are quite cool looking with cozy and cute interiors.
Jay says
Really neat, thanks for sharing!
I like looking at old housing plans and photos. Are the houses still standing? Many times the war housing was left standing and became incorporated into the communities where they were located.
Rick S says
Pam,
I am excited to see the wonderful neighborhood designed so long ago seems to be intact and looks good. I went on bing maps and entered
Hobart Streets, Springfield, Massachusetts. When you click show labels, the street names show up. The St James and Carew Streets form a V and Hobart joins the two at the bottom, like an upside down A. The birdseye view lets you see the homes and yards. It looks like a nice place to live. not sure if I can post “address” to bing will post if allowed.
rick
Rick S says
Pam,
I took a tour of the streets via computer. I wen on ZILLOW. Enter zillow and any of the streets in the developement, followed by Springfeild MA, and you can “drive through the area. Some of the street names are Carwe St, Putnam Circle,Baldwin St,Farragut St,Acme Pl,Kelly Pl,Cameron St, and Ames St.
It is like driving down the road and gives “approximate house numbers, and realtor info, ie #of bedrooms,baths,year built and sq feet. I felt like I was there.
rick
Rick S says
Sorry Carew St. – typing handicap
rick
Sarah g says
We have a similar neighborhood in my town. We are home to the now defunked Chennault airforce base ( aeroframe now uses it to repair commercial planes) and during the war years plenty of these tiny houses were brought in to house the military families. The neighborhood still exists, greenwich village, and all the streets are named after generals. Part of it is gone however when they built the I-210 loop they went right through it. The houses are sooo tiny and the ‘neighborhood’ of the past is presently just ‘hood’ now… In the past 2 years some developer has been buying them up, remodeling them, painting them funky colors and reselling them for a flat 75,000.
The town across the lake had an entire Neighborhood for Lustron houses in the village of maplewood ( no longer officially exists but people still claim to be from there) I’ve only been able to find 2 of them and one is in really bad shape.
Andreas Jordahl Rhude says
The company for which I work manufactures structural glued laminated timber at Peshtigo, WI. During the late part of WW II, they started making pre-fabricated homes. The first project was for 500 homes that were shipped to England! These were to replaced bombed out neighborhoods. Immediately after the war many housing developments were put up for returning veterans and their families. One such development was in Gary, IN another in Brillion, WI. Homes were shipped to Alaska too.
I have a binder of 11″ x 17″ original drawings of the various models from 1950. Very cool stuff! They hired Milwaukee architect Edmund Schrang to design the line. They dropped the pre-fab house line about 1958.
Andreas
Janet in CT says
Never heard of RBW – very interesting! I would assume the neighorhood still exists – Pam, do you know where it is now? My father-in-law told us that after the war, he went to work for a contractor putting in these suburban subdivions in Manchester CT. Alot of servicemen were coming home and getting married and needed a house to live in. Since Pratt and Whitney Aircraft in Hartford was just about the biggest employer for returning vets in New England at the time, housing was desperately needed in the area, and FAST! He said that they set up a sawmill right on the premises, and as they cleared the land, they cut up and milled the wood for the framework of the houses. I can’t even imagine all the twisting and bulging those walls must have suffered as that green wood dried! They were putting up three houses in two weeks, weather permitting, or two houses in three weeks in bad weather. They were usually sold before they were even done. I like driving through that area but most of the houses have been remodeled and updated multiple times; however, a few of them are still mostly original and very interesting.
pam kueber says
I think the neighborhood is still there. I know there is a street there named after RBW. I need to go over there and check it out — it’s only an hour or so from where I live…
Janet in CT says
Probably the same distance for me here in central northern CT. I would love to find out if some or most of the houses are still there! We don’t go through or to Springfield often but it would make a nice day trip!
Eric says
Yes it’s still there I live right near it. It’s not a very good neighborhood.
Chad D says
Do you know what happened to this after the war? There’s a neighborhood an awful lot like it in the town where I grew up. They were supposed to be leveled but the owner of the land, who I think loaned it or leased it to the government, sold off the houses instead.
Jana (Berniecat) says
What an interesting piece of history! From the description of the development, I would guess that the defense housing neighborhoods were the first models for the post war suburban subdivisions? Did Royal Barry Wills design and build post war subdivisions and housing developments as well?