Prairie Village Tutors Come To You

Thanks to its proximity to Kansas City, the area now known as Prairie Village, Kansas, grew quickly in the mid-nineteenth century. Real estate developers began the practice of building model homes that enticed people to buy, federal home loans became available, and department stores, appliance manufacturers, and utility companies built their own model homes to showcase their products. Out of this flurry of building and promotion of household goods came the Kansas City Power & Light Company’s All-Electric Model House.

Built in 1954, the house represented post-World War II’s obsession with one-story “ranch houses.” The five-room house was split into three zones: the living area, the housework center, and the private area. The living area encompassed a dining area, a family room for TV viewing, and a big picture window that looked out onto a patio to encourage indoor-outdoor living. The housework area, home of the kitchen and a utility room, was for the first time located in the front of the house so the “lady of the house” could watch children playing out front while cleaning or cooking meals. The private area was found at one end of the home and included a bedroom, a second room used as a bedroom or den, and a bathroom. The home’s greatest innovation was the attached garage, which housed the family automobile and heat pump and also included a work bench for handyman projects.

Besides the novel heat pump, this “house of the future” incorporated advanced electrical developments, with a master control operator that controlled twenty different electrical circuits inside and outside of the home. A master pilot light panel tracked which lights were on. “Delayed” lights in the kitchen, utility room, and garage turned off two minutes after an area was vacated. Mood lighting was created for the first time through the use of dimmer switches. A panel of artwork over the fireplace could be slid to the side with the push of a button to reveal a TV. The auto sonic garage door was also controlled by a button.

The house represented consumers’ switch to a strong reliance on technology, a trend that would only continue in leaps and bounds. Advertised in magazines like Better Homes & Gardens, the home attracted 62,000 visitors the year it opened. Four families lived in it before it was donated to Johnson County Museum and completely restored.

The All-Electric House was relocated in 1994 from Prairie Village to Shawnee, Kansas, and again in 2016 to the new Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center in Overland Park, Kansas.

Johnson County Museum has devised a “Century of Change” program that allows third- and fourth-grade students to compare architecture, appliances, furniture, and clothing between two centuries by touring the 1954 All-Electric House and the historical Grinter home, which was built in the 1860s during Kansas City’s early settlement. By learning about past centuries, students can perhaps envision what a home built in 2050 would look like.