Natick discovers suburbs, housing subdivisions, and quarter acre lots.

Based on, "Whatever Happened to - and who's living there now"
by Carlton L. Smith, Yankee Magazine, v11, 1975

In 1946 Fortune Magazine introduced post-war America to the suburb in an article called, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle." This later became the 1948 movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." In it a New York City ad executive spends $56,263 (a fortune for the times) to turn an old Connecticut farm into his dream house, much to the amusement of the country bumpkins.

In 1948 General Electric engineers designed a set of blue prints based on the movie. The house was designed to have all of the latest Atomic Age devices like television, automatic central heat, and air conditioning.

General Electric's version of the dream house was built on MacArthur Road in East Natick by developer Sumner Hersey. It stands halfway between Patton Ave. and Halsey St, across from Nimitz Circle. (Get it?) It had all of the modern inventions in a day when most people in Natick still had iceboxes and wringer washing machines. (I still had one of those in 1963.) It had a home freezer, a kitchen garbage disposal, a washer drier, a mangle iron, an automatic washer-drier, a dishwasher, and for kitchen "speed-cooking", a Stratoliner oven.

Hersey, a publicity man for the USO during WWII, opened the house for public viewing on Sunday Hune 27, 1948. More than 125,000 people toured the home in the next 30 days, each one paying 25 cents. Hollywood star Jackie Cooper arrived by helicopter to greet the opening day crowds. Myrna Loy, star of the "Mr. Blandings" movie, also paid a visit to the house in Natick.

Unlike all of the other homes in the Oak Park Manor development, this one had a full half acre lot, not just a quarter acre. It backs up to Natick's town forest. It was furnished by Jordan Marsh, which was itself just moving into its flying saucer-shaped new store, across from other new quarter acre lot subdivision homes on Worcester Road.