Feb. 14, 2017 By Hannah Wulkan
A controversial structure that was universally panned by Sunnyside residents has found a new home in California.
The 1931 Aluminaire House, which was to go up on the corner of 39th Avenue and 50th Street in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, is headed to Palm Springs.
The house was slated to go on the site of the old Phipps Playground along with an eight-unit residential development before the controversial plan was rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2014 for being out of character with the historic district.
The house has now started the trip to California in a 45-foot-long trailer, the New York Post reported, at a cost of $15,000. It will be set up as a permanent structure in Palm Springs and is slated to open to the public in 2018.
The 1,200 square foot Aluminaire House is viewed as architecturally significant since it was the first all-metal house built in the United States.
However when developers first proposed setting up the historic home in Sunnyside Gardens in 2013 the plan met a harsh backlash from the community.
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents the area, came out strongly against it at the time, stating that it did not make sense alongside the surrounding architecture.
“I am happy that the Aluminaire House found a more suitable home in Palm Springs, CA,” Van Bramer said in a statement yesterday. “While I appreciate the novelty of its design, the all metallic building would have been wildly out of place amongst the historic brick homes that make up the landmarked community of Sunnyside Gardens.”
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16 Comments
I will always be thankful to Jimmy Van Bramer and Nick Gulotta in his office for killing this project.
Wish it would have worked out to stay here. People use historic as. Excuse.
I rode past this vacant lot yesterday. It looked jus as forlorn and depressing as always,
That’s too bad. Think it would have worked well at that location. Nothing wrong with mixing old and new. Variety is the spice of life.
Sunnyside home of the losers !!!
Woodside is your daddy!!!
Such a shame, this would have been a welcome addition to the nabe, another example of the sunnyside dinosaurs moaning about change and ruining it for the rest of us.
Lucky some crackhead didnt steal it and sell it at the scrap yard for junk aluminum
I think it’s a shame that didn’t put it in the Gardens. Is quite a piece of history and pretty cool to look at.
It’s not that big. They should have put it in the courtyard of PS1 where people will actually visit it. Nobody is going to live in it and nobody would tour it in Palm Springs or Sunnyside.
Dats a good von
Immm melting ????????
It did not belong here. Glad it found a permanent home. May it get the care and attention it deserves there. They have a lot more room to put up a model home.
Imagine the inside of that house in the heat of Palm Springs’ sun.
all the cool stuff is in california, old white people of SSG put a stop to this one. too bad.
It must be like an oven in that house
Good building. Too bad we can’t enjoy it here.