The Futuro Home of... Barney Vincelette

The Futuro Home of Barney Vincelette

Barney and his wife outside their Matti Suuronen Futuro Home

This awesome home of Maths professor Barney Vincelette was designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in the 1960's,  and originally intended as a mobile ski cabin. Barney Vincelette however wanted one as a home and has fought a hard battle with the locals to realise that dream....

" In June of 1977 I purchased a used Futuro that was completely furnished for $16,000. I paid for most of it with my severance pay from the Air Force and I paid and worked off the rest of what I owed to Joe Hudson over the years that followed because no bank would finance such an unusual house. 

My Futuro had been put up outside of any city or town limits because there were ordinances that outlawed any style of architecture that was considered disruptive the architectural style of the community. Still, I had neighbors who lived several hundred feet away, and some of them were hostile. “We don’t want weird people like you in our neighborhood,” they warned. 

After some of them tried to run me over with a pickup truck while I was riding my bicycle I resolved to be as, whatever they might find as weird as possible. I painted my Futuro house with glow-in-the dark paint and put up ultraviolet lamps to charge up the paint so that the house would glow a beautiful green color it night. I wore a fuchsia colored gorilla suit on my bicycle.

 I suppose I could have gotten myself murdered by doing these things, but the Futuro house was not just a home, it was my way of life and I was willing to put my life on the line to defend it.  In 1984 a camera crew from a television show called Real People came all the way from California to do a film on my house and the publicity protected me from further bullying by the more low life neighbors.

Over the years that followed, I worked part time as an air taxi pilot, a parachute rigger, a flight instructor, and an aircraft mechanic. I also took night courses, eventually earning two master’s degrees in physics and a PhD in mathematical physics and applied mathematics. During this time I had wanted to marry and have a child, but the vast majority of women wanted nothing to do with anyone who would live in a Futuro house. 

What was worse, too many women were so fanatical in their love for commercial pop/rock music that they were highly offended when I did not revere their favorite pop songs that were on the radio. I was in my 40’s when I finally married and so was my wife so it was too late to be able to conceive a child.

Today I work as an adjunct mathematics professor at Delaware State University where I earned my PhD in 2009."

Article and Images found at Nest mag

To view more of these beautiful Futuro Homes across the Globe visit www.thefuturohouse.com