Monsanto House of the Future

The Monsanto House of the Future was a walkthrough attraction at Disneyland's Tomorrowland.

History
The House was designed by Monsanto, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Walt Disney Imagineering to demonstrate the potential of plastics for building new homes with an easy to customize modular structure.

The house itself, intended as a look at future living in the year 1986, would be furnished with a variety of technologies new at the time, such as a kitchen with a microwave oven and sonic dishwasher, adjustable height sinks in the bathroom, retractable refrigeration space, touch-tone phones, and more. The house received over 435,000 visitors within the first six weeks and would see around 20 million before it finally closed after 10 years.

When the house closed in 1967, demolition proved difficult when the house's durable plastic shell was able to deter efforts using wrecking balls, torches, chainsaws and jackhammers. It took choker chains to bring the house down and the steel bolts fastening the house to its support base gave in well before the house did. The foundation was left in place and became a planter for what became known as Alpine Gardens. The area eventually became home to the Ariel's Grotto and Pixie Hollow meet and greet attractions.

Legacy
Similar "House of the Future" exhibits would appear in other parks in later years, with the RCA House of the Future serving as a post-show experience for the Magic Kingdom's Space Mountain in 1975, and a House of the Future exhibit appearing at Innoventions at both Epcot and Disneyland.

In the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Buzz Lightyear lives in a neighborhood packed with houses based on the House of the Future.