The Warfleigh neighborhood between the White River on the north and the Central Canal on the south which flows through Broad Ripple, and between Meridian Street and College Avenue, features five Lustron post-war homes. These ranch style homes were invented by Carl Strandlund and are constructed entirely of steel. The exterior is enameled steel which never needs painting. They can be identified by their few manufactured color choices of Desert Grey, Dove Grey, Maize Yellow and Surf Blue. Today, low income families could have dreamed of home-ownership if only Lustron was still in business. Imagine how exciting it would have been to have a non-toxic home built entirely of steel including the "Thor" combination dishwasher/washing machine arriving by truck and with the opportunity of being able to put it together as though it were a huge pre-fabricated kit with over 3,300 parts. The house never had to be repainted inside or out and the roof was guaranteed for fifty years. Other features advertised were lightning-safe, decay-proof, and termite and rodent proof.

These homes were manufactured by the Lustron Corporation in Columbus, Ohio, in an assembly-line production. They were meant to be the affordable solution for veteran's families to reside in after WWII, beginning in 1947 until the 1951 foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings. The government was backing the project to rapidly construct homes for WWII veterans with a multimillion-dollar loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the use of the decommissioned warplane manufacturing plant, Curtis-Wright. Indianapolis had a major housing shortage and whole neighborhoods were built rapidly at this time. The crisis abounds all of America when approximately 10 million soldiers were discharged from the armed forces during 1945 and 1946. Some soldiers hurriedly wedded before going off to war and those who waited, got married as soon as they got back, and then there were those like my parents who got married while on duty stationed in Alaska during the war that neither planned or waited. Many soldiers were forced to live with parents while married or were in unsatisfactory accommodations while the media promised a higher expectation such as the "American Dream" which was unrealistic for the average person. Prior to this time "in the 1930's only twenty percent of American families could afford low end single family housing." (Suburban Steel) The population also increased dramatically creating what is now known as the "Baby Boom" due to military persons postponing marriage and family planning. Citizens were worried about an onslaught of another depression era. Housing had to be cheap and abundant. Pre-fabrication of entire homes or parts of homes seemed to be a solution with the federal housing program associated with defense mobilization. An example of this as a remedy can be observed in Indianapolis of the north side east of College Ave. It is a neighborhood which sprung into existence by means of conventional building with pre-fabricated parts such as the tract houses which were conducive to low costs and quickened time frames for completion. They were also more accepted with the population as regards style as opposed to Lustron Homes and lenders were more willing to offer mortgage loans. Persons buying Luston Homes had added costs of buying the lot and the shipping of transporting the house by tractor trailer. Veterans had to have saved up more money for a Lustron house as opposed to other building types. Levitt homes and today's Beazer homes are examples.

It is hard to say why Lustron homes failed as a business. Their too futuristic appearance was unusual by current trends and some home owners in the country were sued and had to modify facades and roof. No one wanted to outdo the conventional home building process. Even the railroads did not want to put lumber aside to transport steel. This would have upset the competition. The Lustron Corporation was proven to have innovative engineering skills, and a resourceful President and inventor, Carl Strandlund. He had already built porcelain enameled restaurants and Standard Oil gas stations, and other industrial buildings when he proposed his new project to the government for funding. Originally Strandlund was only trying to access the government's hoarded steel supply for gas stations when they inspired him to turn his efforts into planning houses. His previous experience was necessary for enabling him to get the government involved in this aspect of the national housing crisis. This was a large peace-time endeavor which fell short when financiers became embarrassed by the not instant success. Strandlund pledged one hundred completed houses per day but only managed thirty.

Other factors led to the demise. Finance companies were not prepared to give mortgages for houses which were not already standing on a site so, cheap homes ended up being unaffordable to the market it was focused on. Veterans had to have saved up cash for investment and pay shipping costs too without any help from a lending bank.

Luston went into foreclosure during a time when they were still delivering several finished homes to buyers, and also had existing orders still. The government refused to finance any more loans. Although Strandlund was not quite on the mark as regards quota per day (he had a vision of 100 houses per day) perhaps the government stopped being supportive on account of bad publicity. A new business often has struggles but the how and why Lustron did not succeed are questions best answered by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, who took control of the company when ousting the managerial staff. Some of the problems were due to distribution of high volume sales. Suspicions of a conspiracy or controversial scandal began to emerge and "an investigation by a U.S. Senate banking subcommittee uncovered a corruption scandal within the Lustron Corporation" (preservationnation.org). The Commercial Home Equipment business owner embezzled money while in the position also as a Lustron director. They rented non-existing tractors to Lustron and falsified billing. Those tractors that were billed were actually sold to someone else. "Lustron paid an additional $44,800 a month for phantom tractors" costing taxpayers $500,000. It was thought there should have been a government takeover, but many thought they should not have been involved in the first place. "Bailouts" came later in history.