Century of Progress Homes Tour at Indiana Dunes takes visitors back to the future

Time travel.

Nope, still not an option for your fall getaway.

Yet, not too far over the Illinois border in Beverly Shores, Ind., you have something pretty darn close: the opportunity to travel back to the future.

The Century of Progress Homes Tour (Oct. 14-15) offers a rare glimpse inside five iconic houses that helped shape the way we live today.

Each year, the annual tour of this time-capsule of a housing enclave — conspicuously plopped on the banks of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore — draws a mix of curious lookie-loos and serious architecture and design buffs. But if you’re someone who’s just wanting an easy weekend day trip, you’ll love it, too.

These five homes were among the a dozen or so featured in the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago.

The motto of this World’s Fair was “Science finds, industry applies, man adapts.” As slogans go, it wasn’t exactly “Think different,” but it got the point across: Americans, then still mired in the malaise of the Great Depression, could glimpse a happier not-too-distant future, all driven by innovation in science and technology.

Fair visitors saw the latest wonders in rail travel, automobiles, architecture and cigarette-smoking robots (yes, really). Today, what remains: these five homes and the wonders of innovations they foretold.

On display: The Florida Tropical House, a flamingo-colored indoor-outdoor abode; the Wieboldt-Rostone House, designed to showcase an ultra-durable material called Rostone (which flopped and had to be replaced by the 1950s); the proto-pre-fab Armco-Ferro House; the Cypress Log Cabin, a contribution of the cypress wood industry; and the spaceship-like House of Tomorrow by Chicago architect George Fred Keck that featured far-out tech like air conditioning, a dishwasher and a hangar for the family airplane, which must have seemed inevitable at the time.

So what are these houses doing in Indiana, anyway?

Real estate developer Robert Bartlett had the idea to use these homes as a gimmick to lure people to Beverly Shores, the new resort community he was creating. He had four of the structures shipped via barge across Lake Michigan, while the Cypress Log Cabin was disassembled and trucked in piece by piece.

Eventually, the homes were sold to private owners before coming into the possession of the National Park Service and then into the care of Indiana Landmarks, which subleases them from NPS.

In exchange for long-term leases, the current residents have undertaken the arduous task of the restoration and long-term upkeep for four of the homes. (Indiana Landmarks is currently embarking on a $2 million restoration of the House of Tomorrow.) And once a year, the public gets to poke around inside for a bit.

If you’re just interested in a casual peek inside the homes, your best bet is a Saturday (Oct. 14) tour led by National Park Service rangers. These two-hour tours run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Registration for tickets, which tend to sell out quickly, started Sept. 11; dunesnationalpark.org, 219-395-1882.

If you want a deeper-dive, however, keep an eye out for Sunday (Oct. 15) tickets from Indiana Landmarks, which takes a more scholarly approach with a two-hour introductory lecture, lunch and visits to each house; 800-450-4534, centuryofprogress17.eventbrite.com.

Discover more in Columbus

If you’re searching for even more architectural highlights — and a fall color tour on the drive to see them — set your GPS toward Columbus, Ind., one of the world’s most acclaimed meccas of mid-20th century design.

Imagine if Design Within Reach decided to open a small city — and this is pretty much what you’d get. Located roughly four hours by car from Chicago, the Southern Indiana town of 45,000 boasts 70 buildings with esteemed names like Eero Saarinen and I.M. Pei attached to them.

Where to begin? Take the Miller House & Garden Tour, an exploration of what is frequently cited as one of the most important modern houses in America. The home is now owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The inaugural showcase of Exhibit Columbus runs though Nov. 26, when 17 site-specific installations each will be paired with the town’s iconic buildings. A 90-minute walking tour of the exhibition is one of many architecture-related tours offered at the Columbus Area Visitors Center.

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