Cemesto

Cemesto is a sturdy, light-weight, waterproof and fire-resistant composite building material made from a core of sugar cane fiber insulating board surfaced on both sides with asbestos and cement. Its name is a portmanteau word combining "cem" from "cement" and "esto" from "asbestos." A type of prefabricated home using this material came to be called cemestos.

Cemesto was introduced by the Celotex Company in 1937. It was manufactured in the form of boards and panels that were 4 feet (1.2 m) wide, about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) thick, and 4 feet (1.2 m) to 12 feet (3.7 m) long. Each 4 feet (1.2 m) by 12 feet (3.7 m) panel weighs just 265 pounds (120 kg). Cemesto was used primarily for interior and exterior walls.

The John B. Pierce Foundation and Celotex collaborated to develop a prefabrication system for building low-cost housing using cemesto panels, in which single cemesto panels were slid horizontally into light wooden frames to create walls. A prototype cemesto house was displayed at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. The Pierce system was first used in 1941 for building employee housing at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company near Baltimore, Maryland. For this development, named Aero Acres, the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed gable-roofed Cape Cod houses with dimensions of 24 feet (7.3 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m), featuring large commercial-style windows in their principal rooms. In 1941 a total of 600 homes were built at Aero Acres using this design.

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