If you are eager to own a home of your own but are stymied by postwar prices in housing, take a good look now at The Lakeshore.
It's no luxurious dream house. As homes go, it's not too big. But it's better than most city apartments. And for the same price you would have paid before the war, it provides the same essentials-a place to relax, a place to eat, a place to cook, a place to sleep-a place all your own. The Lakeshore has clean, straightforward lines and simplified construction that cuts cost to the bone. It's a neat, comfortable home -a real $5,000 bargain.
Despite today's high costs The Lakeshore still compares favorably with an average prewar house in the $5,000 class. Naturally, it's a relatively small house but you still have a 16 x 12-foot living room-a good size for an average prewar house in its price range-plus two bedrooms, a bedrooms, a modern kitchen with plenty of elbow room and a tile bathroom.
After mounting a three-step concrete stoop, you open the front door and enter a small foyer with a coat closet opposite the front entrance.
The living room is off to the left of the foyer. Like the other rooms and the house itself, it's almost square in order to make the maximum use of space at a minimum cost. A wide window along the front wall and a medium-sized window on the sidewall gives a double exposure for both light and fresh air. A door near the inside rear corner of the living room leads into the small hall that serves as a passageway to the two other bedrooms, the kitchen and the bath.
The master bedroom, just back of the living room, has two windows set in the rear corner and a large closet along the wall next to the bathroom. This bedroom is big enough for a wide double bed or for twin beds. The bathroom is located between the master bedroom and the kitchen.
At the opposite end of the hallway from the master bedroom is the kitchen. The equipment is compactly organized so that there's enough open space left for a full-sized dinette set. Since The Lakeshore has no special room set aside for dining, the kitchen does double duty by serving for both cooking and eating.
The stove and the sink are set under a row of white-enameled metal cabinets along the inside wall next to the bathroom. There's economy in this arrangement, as there is in practically every detail of The Lakeshore plan. By locating the sink next to the bathroom, water and waste lines for both units can be run together in the wall, with a saving in plumbing costs.
Between the sink and the hall doorway is a tall broom closet with a separate door on the upper part so that this section can be used as a cupboard.
In the more expensive version of The Lakeshore-the one that costs $6,000 plus the price of the land-a stairway off the hall leads down to a full basement. You can cut the building cost down to about $5,000 by eliminating this cellar and putting your house on a concrete slab.
The outside walls have insulating board sheathing and may be finished with either wood or asbestos shingles-or a combination of both. The interior walls and ceiling are made of gypsum dry-wall construction. Asphalt-strip shingles form the roofing.
Since The Lakeshore is a compact small home, it can fit nicely into a lot only 50 x 100 feet in area. But even in selecting such a tiny site as this, there are several points to bear in mind if you want to get the best housing value out of your new home.
The lot should cost about 10 per cent of the total price of the home you plan to build. Your site should have ready access to the community's regular utilities, such as sewage disposal, electricity, street lights, paved roads, telephone lines, good transportation and fire and police protection. But the location really isn't "fully im- proved" if it's on low ground that may be expensive to fill and hard to drain. You ought to check on the sewers to see that they are big enough so that they can handle the run-off from any rainstorm and deep enough so that the sewers won't back up and flood the basement or foundation of your house.
Try to find a lot with broad frontage on a quiet, clean, odorless street that's zoned for strictly residential use. In any case, avoid narrow or angled lots that will crowd your house awkwardly on the land. The lot's sidelines should run at right angles to the street to give you the best use of the area. If there's any question about the exact boundaries, have an engineer survey the lot for you.
It's always good to consult a real-estate lawyer before buying to be sure that you get a full, salable title to the land. To borrow money to build your home, you generally have to show that you have a proper legal title to the lot and that you have completed payment for the transfer of that title to you.
As its name indicates, The Lakeshore would make a fine summer home on your favorite lake or seashore. Its construction and design are simple enough for the house to be a practical project for the energetic home craftsman. But in these high-cost days when a small home usually sells for double its prewar price, The Lakeshore means much more-a low-cost but livable private dwelling you can call "home" every day in the year.
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