The houses, comprising eight models, were all built in a 12-block area known as the Standard Addition. Before 1916, the home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. Cities with large numbers of documented Sears Modern Homes include: The Carlinville, Illinois, concentration consists of houses bought in bulk by the Standard Oil Company in 1918 to house its mineworkers at a total cost of about US $1 million. It mightve been easier to get a job or start a business off the bat compared to the hoops and bureaucracy we have for both these days, but there was no U-Haul or Pods to make moving easier. They produced three different product lines based on budget: the high-end Honor Bilt homes, Standard Built homes that were popular with young families, and Simplex Sectional low-budget homes that were mostly used as vacation cottages. Catarina is quite well informed about Sears houses in the D.C. area, but also has researched the origins of many of the Lewis Homes kit homes in the area. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. During the later era of pre-cut houses, we don't usually put homes on our list, if they have these kinds of design differences. We've found examples from the Wardway, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Homes, and Ray H. Bennett companies. Thats cheaper than many tiny houses and with space to actually breathe and have more than one person live with you without wanting to kill each other. Photo from Realtor site. Author, researcher and lecturer Rebecca Hunter became fascinated with the phenomenon of mail order homes in 1996, and is currently engaged in the study of kit homes and agricultural buildings marketed from 1906-1982 by nine different companies. Residential construction was drastically down nationwide due to the Great Depression. The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes reduced manufacturing costs, which allowed Sears to pass along the savings in lower prices for customers. So, I'll just post a nice selection here. That's why we love seeking them out! national database of sears homescalgary police organizational chart. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Search. That's what happens After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. They werent all the 3-bedroom Craftsman ranch style you see throughout Los Angeles or the compact Levittowners in Pennsylvania and Long Island to the east: the Atlanta and Chateau models were probably the great-grandaddy of the modern McMansion, with the Malden model being its odd little cousin that sits in the potato salad at the family reunion, what with the odd arrangement of dormer windows although they arent fake. Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. The windows, the kitchen and the bathroom were updated over the years, but it is still very much the house it was when it was built.. | Sears Modern Homes", "Sears Houses in Arlington Virginia: A Comprehensive List", "How Sears built an entire local neighborhood", "Historic Structures Crystal Lake Historical Society", "Sears Houses in Elgin Illinois arranged according to model name", "Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes in the Philly Suburbs and Sears House Hunters", "Where are the rest of the Sears houses in the U.S.? Square . But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. Wonderful, Malissa! One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. Where Are The Rest Of The Sears Houses In The U.S.? Our team did some traveling around streets inside Philadelphia, in neighborhoods like Oxford Circle, Rhawnhurst, and Roxborough, to name a few, and added about 43 houses to our list, from these neighborhoods. It's also possible that some local builder just put together a similar design, to compete with the Sears houses being built in town, but, some of these examples are on blocks of streets that are lined with Sears houses from this early spec offering by Sears. But who knows, maybe well see tiny shipping container homes in a museum someday after we take back the rest of the real estate after the revolution. My father knew the local builder (Mr. Humphreys) who put the house together. In other cases, the home followed the general design of a Sears house without being an exact duplicate. In addition to home building costs being up to 40% lower than traditional building, you also had the option to bring your own blueprints to Sears to get them modified for far less than itd comparatively cost to go to a builder or architect today. Simply put, life was rougher. This is a complete list of Sears houses in Aurora (and two in Montgomery that were originally in Aurora). This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. Our goal is always to authenticate these houses through mortgage and deed research, or other primary sources, but, when that is not possible, we apply a careful, team approach to analyzing each house that goes on our national list. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Thanks for your interest! None of these houses are authenticated through mortgage or deed research, but they are spot-on matches for the models, and we feel certain enough of their origin, to add them to our database. By the time of the 1914 catalog, the model had been tweaked, to add the peak gable, closed pediment pop-up dormer over the upper bay windows. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. Price: $179,900. Theres a whole checklist of signs to look for, such as stamped lumber in the basement or attic, shipping labels on the baseboards and other millwork, or even looking up your deed and records pertaining to the actual home purchase. The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. They kept up with it, of course, but it sure has good bones. national database of sears homes. [38][39], One well-known replica of a Sears house is at the "Farm at Prophetstown" museum in Battle Ground, Indiana, which features a replica of a Hillrose model. Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. While financing through Sears helped many homeowners purchase homes, many of those purchasers defaulted during the ensuing Great Depression. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. 171's porch roof (when it is a partial porch) connects to the house far to the right side of that upper window and then has a wedge-shape side part to that roof, so that both models end the porch just to the edge of the front door, but with a very different treatment to the shape of the porch roof there. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati Local Sears house enthusiast Karen DeJeet, who owns a Hamilton model in Forest Hills and is a member of the Sears House Finder team, has already done much of the work identifying the mail-order homes still standing in the region. If you have any information on a Sears house or a style that is not identified, please notify the Preservation Commission. My uncle mentioned that he had found some shipping labels from Sears in the house and when we asked my grandmother about it, she said: Oh, yes, we ordered it from the Sears catalog, Chabot said. Historic house: Built in 1911, this Sears home sits on a large, corner lot in a historic district, surrounded by antebellum homes. Sears, Roebuck and Company's Modern Homes program began in 1908 and ended in 1940. We love her for giving us this to quote over and over again and for the many Sears houses that she has added to our list. The Sears Tower is nearly finished. 02, 2023 : History: Catalogs: Homes: Products: Brands: Stores: People Historic Homes : . It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. presentation, nows your chance! There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. One final note about our list: as I've mentioned, our list includes, for the most part, homes that we have located, ourselves, but also those that we have learned about from other people. Moreover, it was just more feasible to plunk down a house somewhere because there just werent as many homes on account of a smaller population. 2) Look for shipping labels. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families. small-town America even into the 1940 census). Sears offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. easier. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. I know of several other models in McCandless. If yours is not one of those, please let us know :) We are confident about all three being Sears houses, but have not been able to authenticate any of them (with mortgage or deed records, blueprints, shipping labels, letters from Sears, or marked lumber). I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! Sears Magnolia was also known as Model #2089. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S., is constantly growing, with over 13,600 homes currently listed. This is the case for the southern New Jersey counties that are suburbs of Philadelphia. Contains merger trees and halo . Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the This means that information about the Modern Homes department is scarce. Some of the most popular models were:[12], The largest and one of the most expensive Sears models was the Magnolia. So, they are likely from Sears. Identifying Sears Homes has become a pastime among history enthusiasts because of their sturdy structure, the do-it-yourself nature of construction, and the popular architectural design concepts. Sales peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression. Designs may have been modified but generally should match in layout and dimensions. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. This label was discovered in a Sears Silverdale model home built in 1911 in Northhampton, Mass., by Judith Chabots grandparents. 1227 Disston St, Oxford Circle neighborhood of Philadelphia. 199 (the predecessor to the Sears, We've put eleven houses on our list that we are pretty confident are the early version of the. I grew up in a Sears house located in Keyport NJ. The. Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. You roughed it until you found a new place and if you wanted a FOREVER home, you stayed put until it was done being built. is selling shipping container homes for about $50,000 a pop and Amazon is also selling prefab tiny houses at a variety of sizes and price points. 264B155. Either way, these houses offered variety and quality even if they werent necessarily innovative. Browse the list below to see if there are Modern Homes in your We also find street names that have changed (without our knowing that), or, especially for folks who bought their house in 1930-32 (the waning years of the mortgage program), we find that folks lost their homes during the depression, so we can't pin them down using the 1930 or 1940 census records. Finally, if you really want to understand the basics of what a Sears Modern Homes kit house is, and what it is not, you might find this blog post of mine to be helpful and informative. Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932. Most of us have a small collection of physical catalogs, or PDF catalogs, but we rely heavily on resources provided, especially, by our friend at AntiqueHome.org, and Daily Bungalow. Had the. city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. But, in the case of the early, non pre-cut houses, when we know that a large number of houses were bought by a company (or offered up on spec, by Sears), we sometimes see that special versions were created for these neighborhoods, specifically. And it led me to dig a little deeper into the history of my community.. If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? Years later, the sales records related to home sales were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes In the Philly S Where are the Sears Houses - February 2023 Edition, The Strange Case of the Wandering Bungalow, DC House Cat Chiming In - Historic Mail-Order Homes, Same Name, Different House Part 2 - From Aurora to the Elmwood, 1926 Sears Special Supplement from AntiqueHome.org. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? 217 (early Starlight), Sears Modern Home No, 126, on the left, at 808 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana, On the right, Sears Modern Home No. We are a team of about 10 researchers who work together to hunt around the U.S. for Sears kit houses built during the era of the Sears Modern Homes program (1908-1942). Asbury Methodist Village Communications Dept. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. Without authentication, however, we can't be 100% certain that this house was ordered from Sears, as numerous kit and non-kit companies offered a very similar model, and these kinds of stories that are passed down over time, often turn out to be mistaken (with the house actually being a model from a different kit company, or simply resembling a model offered by Sears). Sears Houses in Elgin, Illinois (Rebecca L. Hunter), BOOK:Houses By Mail -- published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, BOOK: History and Field Guide to Wardway Homes, Rosemary Thornton's Sears Modern Homes website (use to search for models), Beatrice Lask Thesis: Summary list (Cincinnati Sears Homes). PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. As I detailed in the account of the rise and fall of the Sears empire, this literally led them to become the largest retailer in America because they had so many burners going at onceand their Modern Homes kits, and even the home buying process itself, were part of that in addition to catalog and retail sales. Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! Not all Sears houses became private residences. , something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. Its not like nowadays where you move, wait for your stuff to arrive, and if youre a. like me, youre pretty much unable to work while you wait for a technician to ensure you have Internet access. Did materials and labor really get that much more expensive between now and then? Its as sturdy as a house as Ive ever seen. . The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. We could make the assumption that the model we have located the most was, in fact, the top seller. Many of these post 1940 homes were based on models from the 1940 and earlier Sears catalogs but not all were, leading to debate over whether these homes qualify as "Sears Modern Homes". Mrs. Lask had been a well-respected and well-known docent at the Cincinnati Historical Society, who led interesting bus tours and lectures about Cincinnati architectural history, when she embarked on this project in the 1990s (which she did while in her 70s-- a testament to the concept of life-long learning). There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. Washington D.C. and its nearby suburbs have an unusually rich cache of kit houses stashed away in some of the leafy, well-tended neighborhoods where 1920s houses still shine. 181, Sears No. The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. June 1, 2022. by etc north vernon covid testing. More information, in this blog post of mine, documented through historic mortgage research, by Andrew Mutch, Philadelphia Inquirer article by Kevin Riordan, 418 Woodlawn Ave, Collingswood, NJ 08108, USA, Catalogs Online: Sears, Radford, Gordon-Van Tine, Sears Starlight (Sears Homes of Chicagoland), Sears Door Hardware: La Tosca, Shefton, Rhythmic, ONLINE CATALOGS on Archive.org: Sears, GVT, Radford +more. You can find catalog images for these models, in the links on the table at the end of this blog post: Also on W Johnson Road, we have new information from Nancy, who contacted me to let me know that she grew up in the Sears house shown below, a Sears. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? 06/16/2022 . Sears also offered a plasterboard product similar to modern drywall as an alternative to the plaster and lath wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters and plasterers. 115 cuts off abruptly, right in the middle of the front facade, even with the left side of the upper window, and it then has a straight slope porch roof jutting out.
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