Idyllwild, California, USA

Last year we reported on the listing of this Futuro as a California State Historical Landmark. Recently this plaque was placed at the site noting this important achievement. Congratulations Wayne & Laurie.

On 090221 the California Preservation Foundation published a video on their Youtube Channel titled «Airstream Restoration and UFOs — Historic Moving Design Typologies.

The first 30 minutes or so of this presentation was a talk given by this Futuro’s owner Wayne Donaldson on the topic of «UFOs — Historic Moving Design Typologies». Of that 30 minutes the last 10 or 12 minutes or so were about his Futuro and its history. Though we learned virtually nothing new it is very interesting to hear Wayne

Back on 022421 we wrote about this Futuro’s listing as a California State Historical Landmark and its pending inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. While we strive for accuracy on these pages from time it seems that we were a little out of date at that time but we are now able to correct that and update the unit’s status with information kindly sent to us recently by owner Milford Wayne Donaldson; many thanks for the info Wayne.

The Futuro was actually placed on the National Re

Futuros have been featured as a back drop in quite a number of music videos over the years and here we have the latest which features this Futuro.

The video accompanies the track Strange (But I Like It) from Stacey’s debut album Saturn Return.

As is well documented in these pages there are Futuros that are extremely well preserved and others that have been allowed to fall into various states of disrepair. As an iconic piece of architecture it is important, to us at least, that they be preserved and protected as much as possible. This Futuro is one of those in excellent condition; it has been lovingly restored and is very well looked after. And now it seems it is also getting a degree of protection.

The Futuro has been listed as a Cal

CNN published a nice article titled «This flying saucer is one man’s vacation home» 120219. The article provide a little general Futuro history along with a few historical details about this Futuro. Journalist Anna Bahney contacted us while researching the article and we contributed to the article particularly in respect of the numbers of Futuro known to still exist.

The article was also accompanied by the video below which includes great footage of the Futuro and an interview with owner Milfor

Photographer Tom Blachford’s ongoing photographic series «Midnight Modern» is described as being «an ongoing series and exploration into the interplay between Architecture, Moonlight, Mountains and the tension of an unspoken narrative». We do not pretend to «get» art and we have no clue how to interpret the phrase «tension of an unspoken narrative» in the context of the photos but we will say this — the photo of this Futuro shown below, one of those in Series IV of «Midnight Modern» is absolutel

We recently added this drawing of the Idyllwild Futuro by Danny Heller to the «Drawings» section of the «Bits & Pieces» page after we saw it on Instagram. Then we decided we needed to add it to our collection and so this past week we purchased the drawing. It will look great once it is framed and hung.

The video below, Karleen by Mora Mora, includes both exterior and interior footage of this Futuro. The Futuro first appears 2:03 into the video.

A couple of weeks ago the «day job» took us to California for a conference. Not that it is anything to do with the Futuro for some reason the conference organizer’s saw fit to place an IT conference at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim and let us tell you, you sure do «pay for the mouse».

Anyway we added a couple of days out in California after the conference and on 022615 we were able to visit the Idyllwild Futuro. Our thanks to owners Wayne & Laurie for inviting us to visit their Futuro.

The d

The video below, «No Needs» by The Entrance Band features the Idyllwild Futuro as the backdrop staring around 2:38 and also again during the credits around 4:07.

The video is a collaboration between Argentine-American musician Paz Lenchantin and Amanda Charchian. Charchian in an interview on vmagazine.com tells us that they:

«… definitely wanted to get across the feeling that there was a unity, a synchronization coming out of six unique bodies. The film features a Futuro House designed by Ma

In December 2004 Futuro owner Milford Wayne Donaldson oversaw the move of his «baby» from San Diego to a rocky Idyllwild mountain top in the San Jacinto Mountains of California. Donaldson had purchased the Futuro that had been located in Hillcrest Canyon, San Diego since 1977 in 2002 and after, being at a temporary location for refurbishment, it was making the move to what Donaldson hoped would be its final home.

Considering the Futuro had ease of transportation as one of its primary design con