10 Facts That Prove Florida Is America's Craziest State
4. Xanadu House Kissimmee
Labelled a home of the future, the Xanadu House of Kissimmee appeared to be made of wasp spit and Styrofoam. Part of a franchise, the strange Who-ville house had cousins in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Marketed as low-cost and energy-efficient, the Florida house designed by Roy Mason was the most popular with over a thousand visitors a day. Opened in 1983, the future soon passed the Xanadu House by. By the 1990s the Xanadus cutting edge technology was antiquated. It used mismatched video and stereo components that were easily upset by the whir of a camera, the fake fireplaces VHS was splotchy, and the rooms were so small it could have doubled as a vacation home for the dwarves of Gibsonton. As the community around Kissimmee continued to grow because of Disney, it became interested in real energy efficiency and homes of the future. In 1996, the Xanadu house closed its Styrofoam door. It was bulldozed in 2005 to make way for some other roadside curiosity or another gated community.
