Melissa Steel of Patterson Heights in Beaver County said the story about the Sears house in McCandless sparked fond memories of the family next door who lived in one for many years. But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. We thought it might be of interest to those readers to point out some more of the history of Sears houses in the greater Pittsburgh area, said Chabot, whose family still owns a Sears Silverdale model home in Northampton, Mass., that was built by her great-grandparents in 1911. Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932.
CNDDB Maps and Data - California Department of Fish and Wildlife Search. Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. Thousands of developments in cities, suburbs, and exurbs have sprung up since with a seemingly endless amount of homes that were built between World War II and today. The article explained that Sears had already sold five houses that were in the midst of construction, and these first houses were all of three different models, and at least 50 more would be built with the possibility that a total of 200 might find their way to the streets of La Porte (it doesn't look like that happened). 3 in U.S. with, at todays count, 1,963 Sears homes found.. I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. This product offered the advantages of low price, ease of installation, and added fire protection. 118 In Columbia, 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. 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. [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. 110 (, 1524 2nd Street, La Porte, Indiana earliest version of the Sears No. In their own way, houses with Craftsman-style design elements often managed their own form of ebullient excess such as Modern Home No. In other cases, the home followed the general design of a Sears house without being an exact duplicate. small-town America even into the 1940 census). 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. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Did materials and labor really get that much more expensive between now and then? You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter . This is the case for the southern New Jersey counties that are suburbs of Philadelphia. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. Many included the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century, such as central heating, indoor plumbing, telephone, and electricity . 168 / Matoka: I am really (really!) 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. While I'm at it, I'll tell you a bit about our mission, as a research team. 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. 1. In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. the case of the Anstett family of Torrington, Connecticut. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. The two-story schoolhouse was priced at $11,500 and its design included six classrooms, a library, an auditorium, and a superintendent's office. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home 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. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma Price: $179,900. to you on Flickr or Pinterest.
national database of sears homes - speedpackages.com Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. If you are a Historical Society interested in awarding plaques for specific homes understood to be Sears houses, please feel free to contact us to verify for you that the house does match a model offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. We maintain the National Database of Sears Houses in the U.S., where we add new finds, almost daily. Ohio resident Marie Vore reached out to us one day, on our Sears Modern Homes Facebook page, with a question about a possible Sears house that she had run across in a real estate listing. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. . 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. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No.
Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. , something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. Damn, it was like. I was intrigued by the concept of people picking out a house from a catalog, she said. The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. ", "Bill of Materials for Sears Modern Home", "Two Italian Families and their Neighboring Sears Houses", "New Homes in Cranford for $4,000!Biggest development evolved in Sunny Acres", "Yes, Virginia, Sears Homes Were Built After 1940", "The Top Four Most Popular Sears Homes--Have You Seen These? There are two examples of this model, in La Porte. The most popular models appeared in the catalog for multiple years. But the houses don't match any of the designs that Sears sold in their catalogs. , 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. After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. 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. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Whitehouse. However, as you can see in the photos above, that showed the sides of the house, the Rossville/No. [17] Later on in the Modern Homes timeline, Sears had in-office designers but titled them as "experts" rather than actual architects.[17]. The Greenview/No. [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.
Homes Index Contains merger trees and halo . There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. Through those two resources, we can see not only kit-house catalogs, but also lumber-yard plan books, which offered house plans to those who were building their homes, in the 19-teens through 1930s, in the traditional method, of hiring a contractor, and buying the building resources locally. 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. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. Sears mail-order house kits can often be identified by the shipping labels that were placed on the backside of trim. Another key figure in the original research into Sears kit houses, was a woman named Beatrice Lask. Today, those marks can help prove that you have a kit home. Due to reviews by homeowners then and now, it would appear that Sears Modern Homes are just as appreciated now as they were then. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. That year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first kit homes through mail order. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. Also, considering that the article was published in April of 1912, all of these models would have been marketed only with their number, as no word names were given to the models until 1916. Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. 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. 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. 175, 1911/12 catalog image for the Sears Modern Home No. It's likely that other Sears models can be traced to him as well. Welcome to Sears Homes! 5 Jun. From 1931-1942 Sears sold about 5,000 houses altogether. [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]. 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the Please contact me if you would like a free Open to the public. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database? city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There was one snippet in the press release that only a couple newspapers reprinted: "Following twelve years of usefulness, one old design was removed from the home catalogue in 1928, as antiquated after having been constructed more than 1700 times, which probably constitutes the world's record for any construction duplication from a single house plan, he [Betcone] says.". Our home also resembles the Bedford Model # P3249, 1926 (this was not in your listings).
Sears Homes Enthusiasts 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.
Remember when Sears sold houses? See some of Ann Arbor's kit homes - mlive The bulk order is the largest known order for Sears Modern Homes and led to Sears, Roebuck naming their "Carlin" model after the city. Welcome to the New NSCAA. Sears houses can be identified or authenticated using the following methods. 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. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Interested in hearing about Rose's near-death experience? Sometimes researchers get lucky and find facts and figures in old company newsletters, personal papers of Sears managers and executives, historical newspapers, and archival interviews conducted with people who worked in the department in the 1930's and 1940's. These pre-1916 houses are generally considered "catalog houses", not "kit houses". [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]. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. 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. 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. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . Simple theme. . This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. The builder was W.L.
national database of sears homes - onehundredeggs.com But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. Sears houses could also be ordered with reversed floor plans. But articles are so scattered by time, date and location that it is difficult to realize the scope and number of Sears homes here in the Pittsburgh area.. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Balloon framing systems rely only on nails to make connections between joints, whereas previous methods used heavier members and pegs. Construction of the houses took nine months which were completed in 1919. When we find a mortgage record, we're just given a buyer's name, and a legal description of a property. How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? As some areas begin to see population booms, such as the tech triangle region of Raleigh, Durham, and Cary as more companies and tech talent make exodus from California and New York based on what I hear from taxi drivers and my university contacts in the region at games conferences every year? Other Sears houses were found dotting other areas of La Porte, but the biggest concentration of the early models, probably all from 1912, were in that Lakeview area. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. Early on, we were joined by Sarah Mullane, who lives in North Tonawanda, New York. A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. Please contact me if you would like a free I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. They kept up with it, of course, but it sure has good bones. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. I'm not surprised that the Argyle is likely the best seller; it had a long run and was as good-looking as it was practical. [37] Similiar references are made to boyhood homes of Richard Nixon and Warren Buffett. Our research would not be possible, without online resources for Sears Modern Homes catalogs, and the catalogs for other kit-house companies, such as Gordon-Van Tine, Wardway, Aladdin, Sterling, Lewis, and Bennett. In some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. 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. 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No.
R.L. Hunter Press: Mail Order House Research 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. Without complete sales records, we cannot say definitively that the Sears Argyle was the top seller. Wonderful, Malissa! We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it.
Sears Modern Homes Rosemary Thornton 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. 159, but it's likely especially because we have found interior views of a couple, and we think we see Sears staircase balusters and newel. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Modest half-timbering in the gables, exposed rafters, knee braces, and gable-end ridge finials combine to create an optimistic facade. While seeing a bunch of Sears homes jammed together in a cookie cutter suburb wasnt a very common sight in the 1930s and 40s, they still got knocked together like IKEA furniture compared to building a home from scratch. During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. Sears also offered mortgages to home buyers and was pretty liberal with their lending terms, which made them an attractive option for widows, the self-employed, and people in marginalized groups who otherwise had trouble qualifying for traditional bank loansa problem that still persists today. Many of these homes were built in Sears planned "Home Club Plan" developments in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.[9][10][11]. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S. has over 13,600 homes on it, and, after Ohio and Illinois, Pennsylvania is #3 in U.S. states with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes found. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. Sears Magnolia was also known as Model #2089. The last Sears Modern Homes catalog was issued in 1940. At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. presentation, nows your chance! Years later, the sales records related to home sales were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. Photo from Realtor site. Argyles also tend to get messed up and hard to recognize like this one at 6818 N. Oriole, Chicago or this one at 1302 Edgewood, Lake Forest. Another gabled ell farmhouse that we found quite a few of in La Porte, is the No. 306 Highland, Madison, WI. 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. 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. They had. My home reminds me of that type of architecture.. Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". 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. [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.