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If you tire of where your Hideout is, put it on a trailer and move elsewhere

Forget everything you ever knew about vacation housing. Forget the $50-a-day tab just to put a roof over the heads of the family when you go skiing. Outboard Marine Corporation, a concern that manufactures outboard motors, golf carts and snowmobiles, has built a portable vacation house. Called the Hideout, it was designed by Andrew T. Kostanecki, a champion sailor and a skilled skier, to provide comfortable quarters in a 10-by-14-foot area for two adults and three children—Kostanecki's own family needs—or for four adults.

The Hideout is made of aluminum panels that sandwich polystyrene foam. Its outside walls have a baked-enamel finish, which is completely maintenance-free. On two sides there are floor-to-ceiling window walls, and one of these is a sliding glass door. The Fiberglas roof rises to a peak 10½ feet high, and this helps to give an illusion of space in the 1,220-cubic-foot area.

The utilities and storage space are very shipshape. The bathroom is a miracle of ingenuity: the shower head also serves to fill the folding sink, and the door expands to make space in which to dress. A coffee table also expands—into a dining table seating eight. It is a tribute to the designer's use of space that it is possible for eight people to sit down to dinner without feeling that they are eating each other's food.

People are stowed away equally neatly for sleeping. Besides a sofa bed for two, on ground level, there is an optional sleeping deck overhead that will hold two adults lengthwise or three children crosswise.

The house weighs between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds and is designed to be moved. Once erected, it can go anywhere on a flat-bed trailer. It is lifted aboard or removed by means of four leveling jacks. It can even be brought down off a mountain, set on a raft and used as a houseboat. Light and heat can be supplied by gas, electricity, or a combination of the two. It can be wired to a 110-volt system or equipped with a generator but, for real mobility, gas is preferred.

There are two versions of the Hideout: a camper type with no appliances, costing about $3,000, and a deluxe version in varying degrees of luxuriousness that can push it into the $4.000 range. The Hideout can be paid for like an automobile, so much down and so much a month to your friendly neighborhood Outboard Marine dealer. To locate the nearest distributor, write to Outboard Marine Corporation, 100 Pershing Road, Waukegan, Ill.