It's highly improbable that any model could hit the 1,700 mark. Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. I think teardowns are the reason that Argyles are not positioned higher in our national database of Sears homes (the Argyle comes in at number 20). 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. 168/Matoka, 301 Weller Avenue, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears Modern Home No. 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. Sears Modern Homes were sold between 1908 and 1942. Welcome to the New NSCAA. Stamped lumber: Most easily found in unfinished spaces like a basement or attic, framing members were stamped with a letter and a number. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. In many cases, we may be able to tell you of homes in your town, that have actually been authenticated as Sears homes, and, in some cases, we may be able to tell you that the house in question is a kit house from another company (consider, , All photos in these blog posts are the property of the author of this blog- link to this blog. Sears Magnolia was also known as Model #2089. Many of the famous designs were commandeered from other sources and/or purchased from architects but given just enough change to be advertised as their own. 5 Jun. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? In areas where the land is already mostly developed and zoned, its not that simple. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. If you have any information on a Sears house or a style that is not identified, please notify the Preservation Commission. We have just over 200 Sears houses on our list, that came from Rebecca's research project in Elgin (it also included kit houses from other companies, that she was able to identify -- we've added those to our lists for those companies, as well). presentation, nows your chance! According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. Shipping label image from my mother's family's 1911 Sears No. ), or streets that have houses with no designated house number (yes, again! Square . So, they are likely from Sears. Im looking at this cute little. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. I think the reason the Sears house is so interesting is that most people associate them with the Wish Book catalog that came in the mail at Christmas. New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma Before 1916, the home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. Some models were offered in both wood siding and brick veneer versions with different names attributed to the same or almost identical home plan. A Gilded Mansion in Newport Beach, CA (Unreal), Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. 2) Look for shipping labels. As sales grew, Sears expanded its production, shipping, and sales offices to locations across the U.S. To provide the materials needed for the Modern Homes division, Sears operated a lumber mill in Cairo, Illinois. Simple theme. rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes. Andrew Mutch ran across that same article in the American Lumberman, and posted in our group, asking if anyone was interested in looking for some of the old models that might be around. From that, we have to try to connect all of that to an existing street address. Molly Harbst of Munhall sent along photos of her beautifully preserved Sears homes a 1920 model called The Crescent after reading the article. [18] National and regional competitors in the catalog and kit home market included Aladdin, Bennett, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Brothers, Lewis, Pacific Ready Cut Homes, Sterling and Montgomery Ward (Wardway) Homes. According to a review written by Mary Ann O'Boyle of Takoma Park, Maryland, her Sears home feels "unabashedly American, the kind of house you see in movies about the good old days" and "allows me to connect with the past". Those kinds of topics are cleared up, in this blog post: When I chatted with Kevin Riordan, I also sent him a list of several nice Sears houses that he could consider photographing for his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. Images are available A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. 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. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. Homes built after 1916 can be identified as Sears kit homes by numbers stamped on the timbers. Hi, Lauren! 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. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Rosemary Thornton easier. Some models of Sears homes were very similar in design to models offered by other kit home manufacturers or through plan books. Here are a few: Andrew just today noticed this brick house with the Sears curlicue decorative iron strapping (only offered by Sears, and the only style of iron strapping ever offered by Sears). national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. The NHPD is the only de-duplicated source for comprehensive data on the publicly supported housing property inventory. 1227 Disston St, Oxford Circle neighborhood of Philadelphia. Boxabl 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. Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. This is what these two models look like, in the catalogs (these are from the 1911/1912 catalog): Up until this point, we weren't really sure what the difference was between these two models. But at the time, there was a housing boom taking place as people wanted to escape the crowds and disease of the cities. Search. Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! 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). There were less people, but quality housing that could get built easily was a must for the quickly-growing population as World War I veterans came home and started families, and an immigration boom was taking place. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. This one, too, looks pretty much like just a taller version of the Greenview/115 and the Rossville/171, from the front and porch side of the house so, it was another mystery, as to what to look for on the other side of the house. Their blueprints were based on what was popular at the time and while they werent the first or only company to do mail-order houses, theyre among the most memorable because you could buy damn near anything in their 500+ page catalogs. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. June 1, 2022. by etc north vernon covid testing. But the houses don't match any of the designs that Sears sold in their catalogs. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! Or, perhaps we have background information about it to share with you!Judith. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati *Sears Americus - Temple, PA*It's been about 3 months since the last update Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. 181 (264P181) in the 1914 Sears Modern Homes catalog, This image is from the 1913 Sears Modern Homes catalog re-print, available, 374 Hawthorne Street, La Porte, Indiana Sears Modern Home No. Powered by, Table of Sears Houses in La Porte, Indiana. 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). [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. sub 2:15 half marathon training plan; national database of sears homes. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. Those are ridiculously difficult to pin down. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home Instead, shipping labels were affixed to the backside of trim that identified properties. In a second blog post, I'll show the several probable kit houses that we've found in LaPorte, Indiana, from other companies. Please contact me if you would like a free I was intrigued by the concept of people picking out a house from a catalog, she said. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? You can clearly see a major difference on this side of the houses. We have a database of all the models that have been identified nationwide to date. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! There havent been any major structural changes, she said. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. And, shortly after me, came Karen DeJeet, a Pittsburgh resident who learned of Sears houses when she found out that she lived in one (the. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. The next housing boom came after World War II so that veterans could have affordable housing for their families and suburbs could accommodate the massive amount of white flight taking place. While Sears no longer has records of where each of the nearly 75,000 mail-order homes it sold were built, it does main an extensive archive of the models that were available as well as the history of its Modern Homes division. The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. Builders that already have both the funds and the skilled professionals in architecture, construction, and land use make it easier for the average person who only wants to worry about their career, move, and family. 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. [5] Early balloon structures were very basic, to enable home buyers to assemble them independently and also because designers had yet to see the implications the method held.[5]. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S. has over 13,500 homes on it, and, after Ohio and Illinois, Pennsylvania is No. built in New Jersey could look just like the same one ordered in Texas and built there, but it wasnt designed to look exactly like the other homes on the block. Among those chiming in about the article was Judith Chabot of St. Louis, Mo., who runs SearsHouseSeekers.com, which serves as a depository for information gathered by Sears home enthusiasts across the country. Simply put, life was rougher. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to 40%, according to Sears. 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. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. In 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses, Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, featuring 44 house styles ranging in price from US $360$2,890. 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. Sears would be listed as the architect, and because they often gave out mortgages, you can find out if the previous owner(s) had a Sears mortgage or not. That is unique to Sears. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. Theres a whole checklist of signs to look for. One of the most expensive models was the Magnolia, a 10-room Colonial-style house with. These pre-1916 houses are generally considered "catalog houses", not "kit houses". Thanks to the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, the NRDB will continue to be updated and available at least through 2023, and in some form, beyond that. Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. 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. To drum up business, Sears issued a press release to newspapers across the United States. Open to the public. 159, except for a closed pediment up in the front and side gable. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? 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, models were probably the great-grandaddy of the modern McMansion, with the, model being its odd little cousin that sits in the potato salad at the family reunion, what with the odd arrangement of, True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. Additionally, at this point in the Sears Modern Homes program, the homes were sold/packaged only with standard-length wood, so none of the framing lumber would have been pre-cut (and, therefore, there would be no alpha-numeric stamps on the wood pieces in the house). It is unknown whether any were purchased or built. [1] Sears Modern Homes were purchased primarily by customers in East Coast and Midwest states, but have been located as far south as Florida, as far west as California, and as far north as Alaska and Canada. In 1916, Sears began shipping pre-cut lumber in its mail-order kit homes that contained stamped numbers used to match pieces during construction. Cindy's research in Delaware County, coupled with my research in Montgomery County, netted at least 200 hundred authenticated houses, but that research was preceded by many hours of searching the streets of Willow Grove, Glenside, and other suburbs, by Karen, Nigel, Sarah, Marie, and Andrew. 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. Without complete sales records, we cannot say definitively that the Sears Argyle was the top seller. A high-speed chase involving an armed carjacking suspect ended in Los Angeles Friday afternoon when the suspect crashed into a police vehicle, and then into a pole. Open to the public. 126 and a Sears No. Charleston, West Virginia is a hotspot for Sears model homes, in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. Honor Bilt homes used the best quality materials that Sears could source and they were designed with what was then state of the art heating, plumbing, and electricity. All these years later it is still a fortress.. I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. She searched the Sears Home archive until she found a catalog with a photo and description of her home. But, as of this date in 2021, here are leading areas in the U.S. with high numbers of Sears houses. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. 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. Keep in mind, however, that even though we have found well over 200 Sears houses in the PA and NJ suburbs of Philadelphia, those are densely populated areas. Had the. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that about 70% of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. After all, future generations became more transient out of circumstance or in light of the digital nomad movement and taking advantage of technology in general, more mobile by choice. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. This is just the top of the blog page you'll find dozens of links to online catalogs here, a link to the excellent Pinterest resource made for us by Sears-house owner Dale Haynes, and a list of hard-copy book resources that are both interesting and informative. The Rossville/No. After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. Thank you for visiting! Depending on where you live, the thought of just building a small or medium sized house can sound totally bizarre or perhaps totally doable if youve got miles and miles of wide open space to work with. Knowing the limitations of a newspaper article, I know that he will only be able to show one or two house photos, so I thought that I would highlight a few that we have found, through our research. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. They came in all sizes and price points before buying a ready-made house or building kit of your choosing became relegated to the tiny house movement if you dont have the resources to, Sears Wasnt an Innovator, but They Knew Quality and Efficiency. TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox. Our list, by the way, began in the early years of our research group. 1232 / No. Historic Homes Images of Sears Homes Click on the associated link for a collection of images and photographs of almost all 447 house designs sold through the Sears Modern Homes program. Sears houses could also be ordered with reversed floor plans. 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. Home Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? That year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first kit homes through mail order. Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. Lg Refrigerator Temperature Min Max, Cardinal Health 2017 Annual Report, How To Cook Lettuce Indian Style, Friday Brushed Canvas Extra Slipcovers, Pacinos Italian Family Restaurant Menu, Thekkady Tourist Places In Tamil, How To Get A Job At Target, , Cardinal Health 2017 Annual Report, How To Cook Lettuce Indian Style, Friday Brushed Canvas Extra The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. Thanks to Ancestry.com, we are often able to get a street name from a census record, but we run into problems there, when we find a town that has no street names (yes! Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. That's why we love seeking them out! 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. Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. I'm currently working my way through the Burlington County records, but they are limited, and set up in a way that makes the process very time consuming. Later, Sears constructed a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. 172/ Hazelton, at 810 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana. Whitehouse. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. Ha! The Greenview/No. by . And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Lets find out! It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. Having just covered the Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores, something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. Freestanding suburban or rural homes were more likely to stand alone in undeveloped lots instead of planned tracts that were set aside by federal and state governments and/or builders that had uniformity in mind. Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. I think that maybe Google maps Streetview wasn't great quality on many of the streets. However, the streets that are lined with these farmhouse models (and many other houses), are actually in the Lakeview neighborhood so, we imagine that was a mistake in the article. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. Not all Sears houses became private residences. In some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. Search crews have rescued Californians stranded for days in multiple feet of snow after back-to-back storms plastered the state's mountain communities and trapped many in their homes. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the The first mail order for a Sears house was filled that year. 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". 171 examples in La Porte. Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression until 1940. 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. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. However, in La Porte, we've also found five examples* of houses that look like a great match for the No. [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. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Thanks! We've found examples from the Wardway, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Homes, and Ray H. Bennett companies. Public records: From 1911 to 1933, Sears offered home mortgages and Sears company officials or the Sears, Roebuck corporation may be named on the mortgage or deed associated with the property where the home was constructed. When we find a mortgage record, we're just given a buyer's name, and a legal description of a property. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. Kushel is credited with suggesting to Richard Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell entire houses through mail order. This system used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. Photo from Lake County Assessor. 168 (Matoka): Here is the catalog image of the No. A number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. By Posted on Mar 10, 2021. national database of sears homes. This label was discovered in a Sears Silverdale model home built in 1911 in Northhampton, Mass., by Judith Chabots grandparents. 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.
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