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General Note

The Healy Guest House, or Cocoon House, was designed by Ralph S. Twitchell and partner Paul Rudolph in 1948. The roof structure is an original technological assembly: steel straps are fastened to flexible insulation boards (to maintain its curved catenary shape) and the roofing material, Cocoon, is sprayed on. The Cocoon House was later selected in 1953 by the New York Museum of Modern Art as one of the 19 examples of houses built since World War II as a pioneer design foreshadowing the future. The structure has been the subject of considerable study, appearing in most of the major architectural periodicals of the time.

Note sign in the foreground at the right reading: "Watch! This bldg. being wrapped in Cocoon. Government specification 'Operation Mothball' 20th Century Builders Corp. Tampa, Florida Phone 8-5381."

Biographical Note

Joseph Janney Steinmetz was a world-renowned commercial photographer whose images appeared in such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Time, Holiday, Collier's, and Town & Country. His work has been referred to as "an American social history," which documented diverse scenes of American life from affluent northeasterners to middle-class Floridians. Steinmetz moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Sarasota, Florida in 1941.