Due to reviews by homeowners then and now, it would appear that Sears Modern Homes are just as appreciated now as they were then. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home This table provides a Streetview link for each house (or, occasionally, a real estate listing link), and, for houses I've shown, but not provided a catalog image of, you'll find a link to a catalog image, as well. In it, they included excerpts from an interview with David S. Betcone, who was the chief architect for Sears at the time. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home 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. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. 920 North Madison Avenue, Anderson, Indiana Asking: $379,900 Sears Roebuck Model: Elmhurst Year Built: 1932 Listing Agent: Julie Armington Listing Brokerage: F.C. [35] Another homeowner, Erskine Hogue Stanberry, states that his Saratoga model was the "first house in Chelsea to have electric lights" and that they "are using the original plumbing and wiring".[35]. Given the more disposable nature of shipping container homes and the portability granted by some tiny houses, its kind of sad in a way that this current crop of Internet-order homes is not only not as simple or affordable as it was yesteryear, but also carries less permanence compared to these mail-order houses. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. 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). The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. We maintain the National Database of Sears Houses in the U.S., where we add new finds, almost daily. small-town America even into the 1940 census). . 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. That's what happens Whitehouse. You had the flexibility to swap out certain elements without causing the whole thing to collapse like one of those Instagrammable burgers thats way too tall. 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. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. 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). Originally marketed as the. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. 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. 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. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. You can see that La Porte, Indiana is mentioned as one of the "built at" locations: We found four examples of what we believe to be the model No. However, in La Porte, we've also found five examples* of houses that look like a great match for the No. by . The. 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. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. You can clearly see a major difference on this side of the houses. national database of sears homes. contacting them by clicking on their name. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold nearly 75,000 kit homes through its Modern Homes program, which featured 447 styles of houses, ranging from large multistory dwellings to tiny summer cottages with an optional outhouse. Harbst said it wasnt until after she bought the house that she learned homes were once sold through mail-order catalogs. Compare house designs to original catalog images. But the houses don't match any of the designs that Sears sold in their catalogs. They kept up with it, of course, but it sure has good bones. excited about this find and I really hope it is one: a Sears No. A Gilded Mansion in Newport Beach, CA (Unreal), Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! Enjoy! Sears Modern Homes were kit homes and the framing members were stamped with a letter and a number to help facilitate construction. 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 are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. Precut lumber was cut to the appropriate lengths and angles based on where the framing timber would be used in the house. Square . Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. My father knew the local builder (Mr. Humphreys) who put the house together. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. Sure, your Wabash or Verona model 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. presentation, nows your chance! If you have any information on a Sears house or a style that is not identified, please notify the Preservation Commission. Owners of these houses along the years may have, however, found paper shipping labels affixed to the back of trim pieces around doors or windows, or decorative moulding pieces. Many of the smaller models are regularly torn down. 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. They had 447 different styles that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! There are many very close lookalikes to this model, so we aren't always confident that they are from Sears, when we spy them in the wild, but this house has Sears curlicues on the hinge end of the decorative iron strapping. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. Many of these homes were built in Sears planned "Home Club Plan" developments in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.[9][10][11]. The Sears Tower is nearly finished. Pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to 40%, according to Sears. national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. Thanks for your interest! The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Designs may have been modified but generally should match in layout and dimensions. Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. 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. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. While these features werent in every single Sears home, they still set the stage for home builders to realize what people wanted in their new digs because of how much their quality of life was improved. Other times, the legal description refers to a house being on "a road leading from York to Millville", and maybe the lot bordering "the land of Joseph Craws" usually, that road, if we can figure out which one it is, is miles and miles long, and there's no way to find "the land of Joseph Craws", so that's of no help at all. Click to visit. Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. 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. Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. Some models were offered in both wood siding and brick veneer versions with different names attributed to the same or almost identical home plan. 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. Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. 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. ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? Sears Magnolia was also known as Model #2089. 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. In late 1930, sales of Searshomes were starting to tank. At one point, I realized that I needed to organize a list of online catalog resources, so I put together this blog post, which has links to catalogs not only from Daily Bungalow and AntiqueHome, but to the many catalogs uploaded on another key resource, Archive.org (have you donated lately?). Welcome to Sears Homes! The best guidebook to the basic history of the Sears Modern Homes program, is the book, Houses By Mail, put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and written by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl. Checklist Search provides a simple and fast way to generate a pre-formatted checklist suitable for printing. 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. 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. How did Sears Modern Homes come to be? This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati Historic house: Built in 1911, this Sears home sits on a large, corner lot in a historic district, surrounded by antebellum homes. From that, we have to try to connect all of that to an existing street address. Buyers could hire a contractor to assemble their home or build it themselves following the detailed instructions that were included. It is unknown whether any were purchased or built. You'll also notice that the No. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. So, Can We See Some Philly Suburbs Sears Houses? The search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. Im looking at this cute little. [34], Like the Standard Addition in Carlinville, neighborhoods of Sears houses still hold a sense of identity and community. 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. 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. However, as you can see in the photos above, that showed the sides of the house, the Rossville/No. A number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. It was built in 1917. I grew up in a Sears house located in Keyport NJ. I was intrigued by the concept of people picking out a house from a catalog, she said. 3 in U.S. with, at todays count, 1,963 Sears homes found.. I hope you found this informative, and learned that Sears houses come in lots of shapes, sizes, and styles. Precut framing timbers, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, were first offered by Sears in 1916. Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey Authenticated Sears Lewiston 261 N. Jackson St., North Plainfield, NJ 1929 This great-looking Sears Lewiston was built in 1929, and used as a model home for Sears after it was built by Anthony P. Raffaniello, and his wife, Helena. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Although it is sometimes claimed that no Sears kit homes were built after 1940, Sears continued to offer pre-cut kit homes through 1941 and into early 1942. national database of sears homes. 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. However, these stamps were not used on lumber shipped before 1916, when Sears first started offering pre-cut lumber. People need move-in ready housing and they need it fast, whether single professionals are seeking apartments and luxury condos or families need affordable freestanding houses. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. 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. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. 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. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. Camden County would be a great place to search, because we know that there are Sears houses in Collingswood, Haddon Township, Haddonfield, and Haddon Heights but, how many? of "Where are the Sears Houses?" to you on Flickr or Pinterest. I just loved the look of it, she said. Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. 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. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! I didn't have very many leads for Kevin Riordan, for the NJ suburbs but, for the PA side of the Philadelphia suburbs that's a different matter, indeed! Chabot focuses her research on scouring mortgages and deed records, old newspaper articles and other sources to identify kit homes sold by Sears. 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. So, I put together a list, but I decided to provide some clarifying background information in that blog post, too-- it's especially intended to help those who might hear the term Craftsman, and think it means Sears House, or who see a 1920s bungalow and wonder if that means that the street is lined with Sears houses, or who find marked lumber in their house, but can't seem to find a match to a Sears model. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! But Matthew has a way of pulling everything together and spitting out a coherent comparative analysis with visuals that helps us see what we hadn't noticed previously. I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. Los Angeles Modern Stilt Home Featured in Heat (Listed for $1.599 Million), International House Flipper Alex Camacho Makes $80k Profit on One House Flip, Bugsy Siegel Murder Mansion in Beverly Hills Flats (Listed for $17 Million), Zsa Zsa Gabors Pink Palm Springs Palace (Listed for $3.8 Million), 35 Kitchen Breakfast Bars The Latest In Casual Kitchen Dining. Chabot can help people identify if their home was built from a Sears kit if they provide her with an address of the property through the House Seekers website, which also has links to catalogs produced by the company and other sellers. Its not like nowadays where you move, wait for your stuff to arrive, and if youre a work-at-home like me, youre pretty much unable to work while you wait for a technician to ensure you have Internet access. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter . I see you posted about the origins of Hollywood three years ago! Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. Wonderful, Malissa! Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. However, many houses described as Sears Homes are not true Sears Homes, being either the product of another kit home manufacturer or not a kit home at all.
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