Historically, this thing was an experimental construction by Yale University dating to 1968.
If you look up a photo of it when it was new, it appears to have been built by spreading expanding plastic foam over a frame of inflated bags. The decayed state makes it look mysterious and slightly creepy-one would wonder WTF type of building it once was. I'd probably have guessed that it was some kind of alternatively-built utility building having to do with the nearby Yale Golf Course.
What I went through to find this thing! For various reasons, I was without a car or P.C. for two months, forcing to use my Slow Android Stupidphone to surf the web. it's a drag to work with 2" maps. I had taken up hiking in Maltby Lakes, and first heard of it because someone had placed a pin on Google Maps that said "Turnoff for foam house". I didn't know what that was (do they remove foam from the reservoir water there?) but a search piqued my interest. I ended up on https://www.ctmuseumquest.com/, a very fine and interesting site where the guy describes hiking in the Maltby Lakes Recreational Area. He mentions hearing that the Foam House was somewhere near the Orange Trail, but he didn't search for it.
This coincided roughly with the pin on Google maps, so I hiked the Orange and White trails looking for a side trail, but found none. I bushwhacked to nearby the golf course, but felt uncomfortable when I saw a cart. For all I know, Yale has the perimeter on camera. As it turns out, this area is nowhere near the structure.
Searching also turned up The Yale Nature Preserve, and this website https://theairlandandsea.com/2020/04/yale-nature-preserve-trail-guide.html that mentions the Foam House. The preserve is a nice find in of itself, occupying the land in between the Golf Course and Merritt Parkway. He correctly states that the House is located near the southwest corner of the golf course, however when I hiked the Preserve, I saw no sign of it, nor any side trails. Nice hike anyway.
I finally found it by following the White Trail in Maltby Lakes to a northerly bump just south of the golf course, and bushwhacked toward the southwest corner of the Course, marking the way with sticks and little cairns. Remember, you should have a permit to hike Maltby Lakes 😉!
It sits on a little cliff about 100 yards from the fairway.
Moss covers the foam, making it blend into the landscape.
Porthole-like windows
Scraps of foam. I'm actually surprised at the low level of vandalism and graffiti. Maltby Lakes was only opened to recreational use a few years ago, The Yale Nature Preserve is fairly obscure, and Yale never bothered to demolish the House.
Once inside, it doesn't really feel like a building any more, the roof having collapsed. As an experiment, it shows just how non-biodegradable foam plastic is.
Once I got back to my PC, I saw that Mapcarta gives an accurate location.
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