Naked Houses: The Architecture of Nudism and the Rethinking of the American Suburbs

In 1960, the flagship journal of the American naturist movement, Sunshine and Health, published a series of articles outlining the architectural challenges of designing houses for nudists. ¹ For the previous twenty years, featured architect Kenn Trumble had built a career designing modest suburban homes that accommodated “the recent trend toward outdoor living.” ² Traditional clients generally requested that some sort of patio, lanai, or other backyard living space be added to their home with the expressed concern that it still resemble other houses in their subdivision. The desire of the suburban dweller for both outdoor living and a nudist practice, however, created additional architectural problems. Common zoning restrictions against high fences made it impossible to add an open yet private patio to the outside of standard suburban homes and the glass doors that made the outside visible to the inside exposed naked residents to their neighbors’ gaze, potentially an unpleasant source of personal humiliation or legal action.