Disney | Monsanto House of the Future from 1957

January 10, 2012

Monsanto's House of the Future at Disneyland (credit: Disney)

Wikipedia | The Monsanto House of the Future was an attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, from 1957 to 1967. It was sponsored by Monsanto Company.

The design and engineering of the house was done jointly by Monsanto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Walt Disney Imagineering.

The fiberglass components of the house were manufactured by Winner Manufacturing Company in Trenton, New Jersey, and were assembled on site.

The attraction offered a tour of a home of the future, set in the year 1986, and featured household appliances such as microwave ovens, which eventually became commonplace.

The house saw over 435,000 visitors within the first six weeks of opening, and ultimately saw over 20 million visitors before being closed.

The house survived the introduction of New Tomorrowland in 1967, but closed shortly after, as Monsanto’s attention shifted to their new sponsored attraction, Adventure Thru Inner Space.

The building was so sturdy, that when demolition crews failed to demolish the house using wrecking balls, torches, chainsaws and jackhammers, the building was ultimately demolished by using choker chains to crush it into smaller parts.

The reinforced polyester structure was so strong that the half-inch steel bolts used to mount it to its foundation broke before the structure itself did.

The reinforced concrete foundation of the House of the Future was never removed. It currently exists in its original location, now found in the Pixie Hollow attraction. The foundation has been painted green and is currently in use as a planter.

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