Forget the conspiracy theories, here’s the real story behind the UFO on top of Tampa’s 2001 Odyssey Club.
NOTE: This story appears in the May 2025 issue of ED Magazine.)
Tampa’s 2001 Odyssey has a unique claim to being out of this world. If you’ve driven along Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa during the past five decades, you’ve probably spotted the shiny silver UFO atop the club. It’s not just a quirky attraction, it’s a rare example of a “Futuro” home, part of a line of futuristic prefabricated houses from the late 1960s.
Designed in the ‘60s by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, the Futuro was created as an affordable, durable, and portable housing option. The 500-square-foot, 12,000-pound fiberglass structures had a starting price of $14,000 and featured bullet-proof retractable doors, futuristic interiors, fiberglass walls reported to withstand 200 mph winds, and the ability to be delivered by truck or helicopter.
Despite their innovative design, Futuros never gained wide popularity, especially after the 1973 oil crisis, which made fiberglass costly, and production soon stopped.
A Tampa-area mobile home salesman, Jerry DeLong, tried marketing Futuros in Clearwater unsuccessfully. Eventually, DeLong repurposed his unsold display model by placing it atop 2001 Odyssey, a Tampa strip club he happened to own at the time, which was inspired by the similarly named Stanley Kubrick film. After a crane mishap damaged the club’s wall during the first attempt to install it, the saucer was successfully mounted and became the club’s VIP lounge.
Today, visitors to the Odyssey enter the rooftop spaceship via a staircase from the club’s main floor. Inside, the Futuro features leather booths, mirrored walls, a disco ball, and glowing constellations—continuing its unlikely legacy as a Tampa landmark.
