Xanadu Demolished!
Home of the Future now a thing of the past.
October 9 2005, 1:30 PM – after leaving the local art supply store a bag full of paints and brush cleaner, I wait patiently to join the traffic flow onto US Highway 192. As I take a look at the all too familiar local landscape, something catches my eye; Xanadu, the Home of the Future, is half gone!
If you’ve never ventured past the gates of the Disney compound during any of your stays in Central Florida, Xanadu was an architectural project built in the late 70’s as a tourist attraction (trying to capitalize on the tourism boom Walt and his imaginers rooted to America’s wang). It ran as a fully operational alternative to the $50 a day theme parks until 1996, when it was purchased by timeshare development juggernaught Star Island with the idea of it becoming a full time unique sales center. After the discovery of Central Florida's largest concentration of water moccasins in its basement, that idea was quickly abandoned.
What Xanadu was, wasn't and wanted to be.
Xanadu was the brain child of Bob Masters. The name was not taken from the 1980 Olivia Newtown-John hit, nor the 1980 Olivia Newtown-John Motion picture. Rather it was Bob Master’s Partner Tom Gussel, who choose the name of this project from the Mongol Emperor Kubla Kahn’s summer residence (as featured in Samuel Taylors Colerige’s Poem “Kubla Khan”). Bob Masters devised a building system using large inflatable balloons as a mold for a spray mixture of insulation and polyurethane to construct dome-shaped homes. In the early 1970’s, architect Roy Mason joined the Xanadu project, creating a clay concept that would quickly become what Xanadu is today (Err, I mean was yesterday).
The Xanadu in Kissimmee Florida was the first of three Xanadu homes constructed at the cost of $300,000. This is nearly twice as much as the cost of the house I live in now. The computer I’m writing this article on is 37 times more powerful than all the computers put together that operated Xanadu. Two other Xanadu Homes of the Future were built in Gatlinburg TN, and Dells WI. Xanadu Kissimmee, FL outlived both of those locations.
The design of Xanadu is unique. Built a decade before the Empire Strikes Back was released, it bears an eerie resemblance to Yoda’s Dagobah retreat. Xanadu was a series of overlapping and connected dome pods, built by spraying polyurethane foam onto removable inflated balloon molds. The exterior of the structure was painted solid white, with a “space-age” communications spire at the back of the home, which broke the otherwise smooth flowing rooftop. The interior of the Home of the Future was a solid cream color in every room with pale green painted cement floors- a high-end cave dwelling, if you will. In the center of the house was its “great room", the largest room in the structure, which featured a large fake tree that stretched from the floor to the highest peak of the ceiling. Other than the great room, the rest of the house consisted of cramped rooms and uncomfortably low ceilings. In nearly every room (including the bathroom) there was at least one (if not more) porthole window providing some natural light to the structure. Nice for the power bill, but not so easy to find blinds.
No one actually lived in Xanadu- it was purly a tourist attraction. While the “revolutionary” design and construction of the building arguably drew the most visitors, it was the computerized lifestyle that was to be the centerpiece of Xanadu. No one was ever seen working in Xanadu either. The entire tour was led by a computerized host guiding you room by room via its monitors.
Xanadu was controlled by computers. More specifically; Commodores. Each feature of the house was at the mercy of the Commodore “Stop/Run” key. Major functions like the television controls, game console, stereo system, VCR, Automated Kitchen, water temperature, HVAC, communications spire, and security were all “Commodorized”.
The most complicated computerized feature within Xanadu was the Kitchen. The kitchen’s automated system could cook meals at a specific date and time, order food via the telephone when stock was low, or place an order to be retrieved from Xanadu’s computer monitored greenhouse. In addition to cooking, shopping, and farming, the Xanadu kitchen computer also managed the household calendar, records, and bookkeeping.
The master bedroom was the second most powerful computerized area in the home. From the comfort of the "resident’s" own bed, they could control minor functions of all the other rooms. Tiring chores such as turning off the family television, activating the cleaning system, adjusting the temperature, or starting the coffee and breakfast could be done right after they hit the snooze button.
The children’s bedroom featured “videotextured” windows – a concept seen decades later in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall. The videotextured windows could generate computer generated landscapes from all over the world, or imaginary scenes from what ever that Commodore could handle.
The giant tree in the great room may have made visitors miss a couple of other key features the house possessed- the family had a choice of watching a small TV in the center structure of the circular couch, or switch to the interactive computer controlled video projector that displayed the entertainment directly behind them. Not the best design, but dammit, that tree needed to be there!
The family room featured not a single 65 inch Television, but rather a stack of four 27 inch televisions all with separate, and let’s not forget, computerized channel tuners. Officially, this was not a “stack of t.v.s”, but rather an “Electronic Hearth”.
The home spa featured an elaborate water entry system that flowed down a twisting path into the hot tub, which featured a stainless steel table. And for the futuristic health nut, the latest and greatest friction-based tension stationary bike sat ready and waiting.
Though it was a nice place to visit, not a whole lot of people ever admitted to wanting to living there. One of the biggest drawbacks to Xanadu was that the low ceilings and curved walls made it nearly impossible to add any personal touch to the house. While the adoption of computers into daily life is alive and well, the wiring and hardware control of Xanadu was faulty, experimental, and in constant need of attention. A cellar was built as part of Xanadu’s original design to accommodate this need, but with a high water table and torrential rain, the cellar often flooded and damaged equipment.
In 2001 when the sales center idea was officially abandoned, Xanadu become nothing more that refuge for Central Florida’s homeless - particularly during the 2004 Hurricane Season.
When it was built, the Home of the Future was a head of its time. Unfortunately, it never updated its concept or equipment. The exterior couldn’t stand the test of time and started to leak badly, causing it to be prone to mold problems early on in its life span. It didn’t survive long enough to become a retro-attraction. In 2004’s record breaking hurricane season, Hurricane Charlie took a heavy toll on Xanadu. overnight, it looked as though the building aged 30 years.
A Personal Note on Xanadu
I first visited central Florida in 1981 – One year after The Empire Strikes Back was released. Upon seeing Xanadu on the drive to Disney World, I was convinced that it was a Star Wars related attraction. I begged and pleaded to go back and see the "Yoda house". My parents stalled me by saying “Let’s see Disney first”. Their tactics worked, as within 5 minutes of being at Disney World, I had totally forgotten about Xanadu.
In 1998, I moved to Orlando permanently. Shortly after checking out the area, I stumbled across Xanadu again and remembered what I had wanted to see 17 years prior. I went back the next day, only to find that it had closed two years prior.
Now, oddly enough, I have connections to Star Island, the owners and demolishers of Xanadu and the land it’s on, so I can not confirm nor deny that I’ve ever been in Xanadu. But I can honestly say that I will never be in Xanadu ever or again, because at the end of this week, it will be gone. Like it or hate it when it was around, it’s been a part of Central Florida's culture for almost 3 decades. Its absence from the tourist row of 1-92 will be sorely missed. I only hope that Dippin’ Dots, the "Ice Cream of the Future", does not see the same fate.
Gone but not forgotten
There is one last chance see something of Xanadu. Amazon.com still carries the book “Xanadu: The Computerized Home of Tomorrow and How It Can Be Yours Today!” - with its new and used sales program. At the time this article was written, there were only 8 copies currently available. They can be found here.
THE DEMOLITION OF XANADU
