We all know about Sears Roebuck houses and Montgomery Ward houses. But fewer people realize that Macy's once sold houses too!
In 1963, Macy's, along with builder All-State Properties, introduced the Leisurama summer homes.
The Leisurama homes were to be built in Montauk, New York and Lauderhill, Florida. The concept was that these would be fully equipped, "all-in-one" vacation houses. For one price, customers would get a 7,500 square foot lot, the house, all furnishings (including sofas, beds, lamps, pots, dishes, towels, toothbrushes), General Electric appliances (refrigerator, range, washer/dryer combo unit, dishwasher), and central air conditioning.
At a time when vacation homes were custom-built and unfurnished, Macy's flipped the script by packaging real estate like a department-store purchase.
"All you have to do is turn the key in the lock and start living," said Macy's at the time.
Macy's supplied the interior furnishings, and All-State Properties handled construction and site development.
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| This was the Convertible model, the most affordable option. Triple windows, low-pitched roof, a recessed door, and a carport. It was for sale for $13,490 ($590 down, about $73 per month). |
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| This illustration shows the Expanded Convertible model. It was for sale for $16,490 ($990 down and $90.90 per month). |
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| A list of what was included with a Leisurama house. Scan from Designcommunity.com. |
The whole concept of an "all-in-one" beach house was cool, but what took it next-level was that Macy's built Leisurama houses at two of their stores and customers could buy one on the spot.
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| Two Macy's stores had Leisurama homes available to tour: Macy's flagship Herald Square in downtown NYC and Macy's Roosevelt Field on Long Island. The Herald Square store built the house on the ninth floor; the Roosevelt Field store built the house in the parking lot. |
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| The Leisurama Convertible built inside Macy's Herald Square, where shoppers could tour a fully furnished vacation home. 1964 photo from Leisurama Now by Paul Sahre. |
Would people actually impulse buy a vacation home? Oh, yes, they did. Here's the story of one shopper, quoted from a 2003 New York Times article.
For this reason, an entire Leisurama house was built in 1964 on the ninth floor of Macy's department store in Manhattan. Shoppers, mostly women, could tour the house and test-drive the state-of-the-art appliances. Laura Goodman, a librarian and mother of two, was one of the wives who did.
''She went to Macy's to buy a bra,'' her husband, Roger, deadpans for the camera.
''Not true,'' Mrs. Goodman insists, laughing. ''He's so full of it.''
Her husband continues without pause: ''And she came home and she said: 'I bought a house. We're going out to Montauk. We're buying a house in Montauk.' And I put up my usual resistance. I said, 'O.K., dear.' ''
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| Laura Goodman in front of her Leisurama house. Photo from the defunct website leisurama.info. |
From 1963-1965, about 200 Leisurama homes were built in the Montauk area, according to author Paul Sahre. The Leisurama homes business was not profitable--the developer underestimated the costs to construct the homes.
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| An Expanded Convertible model in Montauk today. Photo from Wikipedia. |
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| The interior of a Leisurama house in Montauk, with some of the original furniture and decor from Macy's. Photo from The Corcoran Group. |
In Lauderhill, only a handful of homes were built. They had different Leisurama models than the ones in the Montauk area.
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| Leisurama home at 1166 NW 42nd Way, Lauderhill, FL. Photo from Realtor site. |
Like Sears and Montgomery Ward before it, Macy’s briefly blurred the line between retail and real estate—but Leisurama may have been the boldest experiment of them all.
Read more about Macy's Leisurama homes in this excellent feature from Newsday!
7 comments:
Whoa, that is nuts!
I think I would be one of those people who bought one at the store!
Wow, that is fascinating! Thanks for sharing!
Who knew?! This is incredibly fun! Seems like a great idea... marketing to a an audience already by their very presence susceptible to impulse buying. However, the marketing strategy obviously didn't last long, despite the brilliant name "Leisurama". The decorative block wall of the house in Florida is quite fetching. Awesome post!
Interesting that the house was designed by the famous Raymond Loewy, who also designed the Sears Coldspot refrigerator, the Shell, Exxon, and BP logos, and everything else from vacuum cleaners to streamlined trains to Greyhound buses to Air Force One to Skylab.
Nixon used these homes in the propaganda of the cold war days with Kruschev. A working class vacation home was a big deal back then.
We saw the Montauk Leiruama houses about 2 years ago--purely by accident. They're literally across the street from the ocean. Montauk is at the very east end of Long Island and wasn't very populated when the Leisurama houses were constructed. Many have been enlarged--they were originally summer houses only, but they remain easily identifiable and most have kept the original integrity of the designs. Yes, Raymond Loewy has designed TONS of things. I wonder if the Leisurama houes are in a historic district in Montauk--either local or National. That's easy to find out. I also lived in So. FL and know those houses, too. Lauderhill was bout 15 minutes away from where we lived.
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