Headline CRAZY FOR QUONSETS
Subhead Alaskans have adapted the military's classic metal structure to serve
almost every imaginable function
Run Date 11/18/2001 Day Sunday
Page D1 Section Lifestyles
Illustrator Photos By Marc Lester Anchorage Daily News Photos Courtesy Of Chris
Chiei, Charles Mobley, Alaska State Library Historical Collection, And The Anchorage
Museum Of History And Art
Story Byline By Sandi Gerjevic Anchorage Daily News

It took the Lord six days to create the world, but the Quonset hut went up in just one.
Ease of construction was the salient selling point of these prefabricated World War II
structures. A crew of eight men could unload one of the lightweight huts at dawn and
sleep in it that night. If the occupants decided they didn't like the view, they could hoist
their hut by hand and plop it down elsewhere. Quonset huts, which largely replaced
cumbersome canvas tents as forward military housing, sheltered untold numbers of
service personnel during the war. In Alaska, they were barracks, administrative buildings,
mess halls, chapels, latrines and hospitals. When the military was finished with them, the
huts were offered as surplus, and Alaskans desperate for housing snapped them up at
$400 to $500 each. Over decades, Quonset huts have endured in the north country,
rivaling bunny boots, pilot bread and duct tape as an Alaska icon. TX: Nobody's
pretending Quonsets are high design, said Chris Chiei, an Anchorage architect. But they
are endearing to Alaskans because they speak to our ability to adapt and survive. The
story of Quonsets in Alaska, he said, is one of boom and bust, love and hate, folly and
fame. ''It's got it all,'' Chiei said. When he undertook a survey of Alaska Quonsets two
years ago, Chiei never imagined his journey would take him by land and by sea and down
back alleys all over Anchorage. Quonsets, he found, had an almost Forrest Gump
presence on the Alaska landscape. ''At this point, I'm absolutely convinced that at the end
of every road in Alaska is a Quonset hut,'' Chiei said. As housing goes, the Quonset's
half-cylindrical metal form has all the charm of a No. 10 can. Think of a grub, a drainpipe,
a half-buried Slinky. These metal marvels weren't built to last, but last they did, much to
the chagrin of detractors -- many would not characterize them as architecture's finest
moment. Yet a devoted cult following extols the huts as one of world's most simple and
elegant designs. As director of the Alaska Design Forum, Chiei is gathering Quonset
information for a potential traveling exhibition. He's compiled notebooks of newspaper
clippings, photostats, photographs and interviews. His slide collection includes the
whalebone-like Quonset remains of a Point Hope community center, a Quonset barn in
Palmer and a Quonset church in Barrow. The Alaska Design Forum, an organization of
architects, artists and designers, has long imported subjects of interest from the Lower 48
but now wants to export an exhibition of significance to architectural history in Alaska.
The Quonset is the perfect subject, Chiei said, because of its cultural richness, its
sentimental value to Alaskans and its important role in military and postwar development
of the state. Quonsets illustrate American ingenuity and adaptability, he said. Soon,
Chiei will know if major underwriters like the National Endowment for the Arts, the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Graham Foundation in Chicago agree
with him. Proceeding with ''unbridled optimism,'' Chiei has requested $85,000 in grants.
With approval, he'll convene a design team to review and focus his research. QUONSET
HISTORY The name Quonset (pronounced KWON-set) derives from a Navy base in
Quonset Point, R.I., where the huts were manufactured beginning in 1941. They were
designed and built by George A. Fuller Co., whose challenge was to mass-produce knock-
down, prefabricated structures that could keep troops safe and sheltered in any climate.
And one more thing: They had to be cheap. Fuller's team made notes on the British
Nissen hut used in World War I. But it was too difficult to assemble, and it had no floor
or insulation. The American designers settled on corrugated steel for an exterior. Sheets of
it could easily be layered onto arched ribs. Floors were plywood. Windows were
shatterproof. Once assembled, a hut could be mounted on a concrete piling or, if
necessary, placed straight on the ground. The early-model huts measured 16 by 36 feet or
20 by 48 feet. They were built from the inside out and included a layer of insulation and a
masonite finish. Larger models featured shade overhangs on each end and could
accommodate more gear or a stove. Warehouse-sized huts housed machinery. Overall, the
Quonset was not unlike a weathered turtle shell, allowing U.S. troops to hunker out of
the South Pacific's pounding rains or the howling cold winds of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
Fuller manufactured about 32,000 huts before closing its factory. Additional contractors
brought the number of huts shipped around the world to about 170,000. After the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army Corps of Engineers ordered 16,000 Quonsets
shipped to Alaska. Crates of huts were secretly shipped to Umnak Island and Cold Bay
in 1942 disguised as fishing gear. ''It was clear that we were going to be playing a role in
the war and that there was a very important need to mobilize bases here,'' Chiei said.
While Quonsets proved invaluable during the war, when hostilities ceased they began
their long social decline. Despite a national postwar housing crisis and enthusiastic
marketing by manufacturers, returning GIs just couldn't warm to them -- Quonset living
was not their American Dream. Nor could city leaders in Anchorage bear the specter of a
postwar Quonset city. They banned the huts in June 1945. To this day, Quonsets are
restricted in the municipality's residential areas. Several Quonsets remain outside the
former city limits, however, grandfathered in as rusting eyesores. Others are aptly
incorporated into businesses as storage or working space behind false fronts. The most
charming huts, aided by picket fencing, flower boxes and cafe curtains, are homey digs for
Alaskans who shun the ordinary. QUONSET LIFE In Anchorage, postwar Quonsets
served as schoolrooms, cafes and tidy homes. Young couples were married in Quonsets
on Fort Richardson. Numerous businesses found a start in them, as did Boy Scout and
church groups. There was a Quonset library and a Quonset postal station. Anchorage
businessman Dennis Millhouse can't say enough good things about his Quonset. ''We've
been working out of here for 30 years,'' said Millhouse, founder of Trend Setters School
of Beauty in Midtown. ''It's served us well.'' According to Millhouse, his Quonset, which
has a false front, had previous lives as a cafe, a bar and an inn. Trend Setters incorporated
the structure as a training center in the 1970s. Over the years, the building has proved
maintenance-free. But soon Millhouse will remove it to make room for a new, improved
building. Describing his Quonset as ''kind of like a friend you can count on,'' Millhouse
hopes to sell it to someone who will reincarnate it as something useful. Quonsets were
great for starter businesses. Chiei is still investigating a rumor of an original Carrs
Quonset. And word has it a popular coffee shop chain, Cafe Del Mundo, began in a
Quonset. As residential dwellings, however, Quonsets had their limitations. ''It's very
much like living in a little ski chalet or an A-frame,'' said Dave (Butch) Gratias of Gratias
House, a Denali Highway lodge built out of a series of Quonset huts in the 1950s.
Gratias' tales of Quonset living were preserved on tape by researcher C.M. Mobley for
the Alaska Design Forum. ''Oh sure, a person has to cock their head a little bit walking
around behind somebody when they're seated or something, but that hasn't been a
problem at all,'' Gratias said. ''Probably the biggest thing is you don't have a flat wall to
hang anything on, other than the end walls. Everything has to be taped up solid or
screwed solid. A lot of my friends were raised in Anchorage living in Quonset huts. I
mean, that was just the way things were done.'' On Kodiak Island, Rose Cobis may hold a
record for Quonset-dwelling. She settled into one of the structures out on Bells Flats in
the summer of 1971. At the time, her new home consisted of steel ribs and a concrete
foundation. Cobis owned neither the Quonset nor the land, but since the area was under
dispute at the time, nobody objected when she and friends squatted in a series of
Quonsets left over from the war. About 5,000 men had been stationed on the flats during
the war. ''There were Quonset huts every five feet,'' Cobis said. ''There were Quonsets
everywhere! It was like a little deserted Quonset town.'' A community of some 50
people sprang up on the flats, 15 miles from Kodiak. There was no electricity or running
water. Many residents, including Cobis, pooled rides to work in the canneries. ''We were
all little hippie kids who had left the big cities and came to Alaska to make our fortune,''
she said. Most of the squatters drifted away, and their huts were razed. But Cobis has
hung onto her Quonset for 30 years -- eventually, she purchased the hut and an acre of
property for $500. Her husband, Ed Gondek, remodeled the hut, building additions and
adding paneling and a heated floor to make it cozy. Cobis planted a garden on top of the
military bulwark out back. Wind rolls over the hut like water, and when it rains hard, she
said, it's like being inside an overturned bucket. At one time, Cobis, 53, considered tearing
down her Quonset and building a stick home, but she never did. ''There's something about
Quonsets, because they have round walls,'' Cobis said. ''You know, they're not square
boxes. There is something mystical about living in a round house.''