Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. Years later, the sales records related to home sales were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. 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. [2] No comprehensive list of their locations exists.[3]. Square . [34], Like the Standard Addition in Carlinville, neighborhoods of Sears houses still hold a sense of identity and community. hennessy privilege limited edition / what is mc hammer doing now 2020 / national database of 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. Our list, in fact, began with 345 Sears houses that Mrs. Lask had found in the Cincinnati area, as part of a Masters Degree thesis project at the University of Cincinnati. 181, and the early version of the. 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. I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! Statewide, about 1,900 Sears catalog homes have been identified. Here is one of the eleven examples in La Porte: This early version of the No. The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. When we find a mortgage record, we're just given a buyer's name, and a legal description of a property. While financing through Sears helped many homeowners purchase homes, many of those purchasers defaulted during the ensuing Great Depression. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. This phrase is trademarked and cannot be used without permission of Ricky Bobby, Inc. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Many of the smaller models are regularly torn down. The group has identified nearly 540 of the estimated 1,000 Sears mail-order homes that are believed to have been constructed in the region. 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. 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. That's not shown anywhere for this model, so we can't say for sure if these are examples of the 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). You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). 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. Shipping label image from my mother's family's 1911 Sears No. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. Chabot focuses her research on scouring mortgages and deed records, old newspaper articles and other sources to identify kit homes sold by Sears. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. In the companys own words, Sears didnt really innovate home building. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). I think that one of our researchers, Lara Solonickne. Researchers Cindy Catanzaro and Andrew Mutch, and the late Donna Bakke, put together a document explaining Bea's work, and listing 345 of the houses that she found, which you can see. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. 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). 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. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" That's what happens , in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. 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. After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. 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. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 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. People always seemed surprised to learn that Sears sold home kits. A number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. 5008". Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. 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. Please contact me if you would like a free Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. 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. Today, those marks can help prove that you have a kit home. 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. Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog.
Sears Homes 1908-1914 catalogs for all central and satellite halos down to 10^06 MSun. The rest of these models are singletons, from the mid 1920s to early 1930s. Construction of the houses took nine months which were completed in 1919.
Sears Houses In the U.S. 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. Park, MD. Before 1916, the home builder had to cut their Sears-supplied lumber to appropriate lengths. presentation, nows your chance! Damn, it was like. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. Whitehouse. The two-story schoolhouse was priced at $11,500 and its design included six classrooms, a library, an auditorium, and a superintendent's office. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it. Photo from Lake County Assessor. I grew up in a Sears house located in Keyport NJ. 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 . within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma Precut framing timbers, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, were first offered by Sears in 1916. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Tucker/Crossroads The multi-million-dollar home has been red-tagged while two other 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. We scour real estate listings, we "drive" around streets (using Google maps Streetview) in towns with a concentration of homes of the era, and we especially love researching, using primary sources such as historic newspapers and the old mortgage and deed resources held in each town's Register of Deeds office, looking for houses that were financed through Sears. 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. But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. 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). Among those are: Sears Modern Homes can also be found in historic districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places: According to Carolyn Fraser's Pulitzer-winning book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the house that Rose Wilder Lane built for her parents, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, at Rocky Ridge Farm in Missouri was from a Sears kit. 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. Sears houses could also be ordered with reversed floor plans. Architecturally, I'm really surprised by the two versions of the Cedars floor plan -- they are completely different, though only two feet were added to make the larger one. Telephone 847-697-4551. www.kithouse.org. Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". I know of several other models in McCandless. Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. 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. Simply put, life was rougher. This is a complete list of Sears houses in Aurora (and two in Montgomery that were originally in Aurora). You'll also notice that the No.
Natural Resources DataBase - NRDB Balloon framing systems rely only on nails to make connections between joints, whereas previous methods used heavier members and pegs. 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. Capture from Google Streetview. BMO, LAFC, and Angel City FC leaders were joined by special guests Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Mia Hamm for the . One key set of homes that we are fortunate to have on our list, comes from the research of noted Architectural Historian, Rebecca L. Hunter. 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. A kick-off celebration was held March 3, 2023, for the newly renamed BMO Stadium. House was moved to Carbondale, CO in about 1972, Still trying to find more info.. That's why we love seeking them out! 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?). Walker O. Lewis (primarily before early 1930), William C. Reed (primarily from 1922 - 1929), Nicholas Wieland (sometimes spelled Weiland), Shipping labels: Often found on the back of. One of the things that Marie has done for us, is to perfectly describe our search for Sears houses, as a "badass hobby" that is akin to a "huge historical treasure hunt". One of the early Sears House researchers that our group still relies on for her expertise in the D.C. housing market, is D.C. realtor Catarina Bannier (Bannier & Sandalow). Not all Sears houses became private residences. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S., is constantly growing, with over 13,600 homes currently listed. 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! Rockstar, Consistent Trees, and Baryon Mass data from the Generation 3 and Generation 6 VELA Simulations. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! 1232, later marketed as the No. 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. 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. There are two examples of this model, in La Porte. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. Excuse me while I openly weep thinking about how many vacation cottages today probably cost the same or even more than house houses in many parts of the country.
Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey - Sears House Seeker 175, 1911/12 catalog image for the Sears Modern Home No.
Sears Homes Enthusiasts Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. 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. 264B155. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. It was built in 1917. This system used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. Where Are The Rest Of The Sears Houses In The U.S.? Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. 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. [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. Here is one at 17 Hill Street, Villa Park. Ha! national database of sears homes. So, I'll just post a nice selection here. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. But at the time, there was a housing boom taking place as people wanted to escape the crowds and disease of the cities. To see a variety of models similar to the Mitchell, that were offered during the kit-house era, see this article. CNDDB Maps and Data. Its as sturdy as a house as Ive ever seen. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. 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. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. Parts for the homes, which were sold between 1908 and 1940, were delivered to the nearest rail station. easier. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. 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). We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. The group has identified 2,700 Sears homes in Ohio and 2,300 in Illinois. It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. She said she also didnt know it was a mail-order house when she bought it 14 years ago. , something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. Many of these homes were built in Sears planned "Home Club Plan" developments in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.[9][10][11].
R.L. Hunter Press: Mail Order House Research The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Excuse me while I openly weep thinking about how many vacation cottages today probably cost the same or even more than, 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. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. 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. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. Either way, these houses offered variety and quality even if they werent necessarily innovative. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck and Co. published specialty catalogs offering house plans and building materials. Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! to you on Flickr or Pinterest. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had
The Top-Selling Sears Kit House - Sears Homes Welcome to the New NSCAA. The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004.
national database of sears homes - assuredtriumph.com Government spending was dedicated to housing in an unprecedented manner as the mantra was driven home that the ideal was a nuclear family in a 3-bedroom suburban house with a car in every driveway. 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. 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. national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. 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). 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. Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. While the vast majority of models were for single-family house designs, Sears offered some duplex house designs and even a few larger multiple-family buildings. The house forms part of the farmstead at the museum.[40]. 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. Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs.
[4] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database? 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. Stevenson, Katherine Cole, and Jandl, H. Ward, (1995), Davis, Michael W.R. and Schweitzer, Robert (1990), This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 21:18. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. 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. The bulk order is the largest known order for Sears Modern Homes and led to Sears, Roebuck naming their "Carlin" model after the city. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? I think that maybe Google maps Streetview wasn't great quality on many of the streets. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. 159. Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . . The article mentioned Sears having sold 50 houses in La Porte, Indiana but, interestingly, Sears had actually provided the funding and the houses, knowing that the area was in need of housing right away, and offered to have the houses paid for on time. [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. 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? National Database: Sears Homes in the U.S. SHORT VIDEO: What It's Like to Live in a Sears Catalog Home, SHORT VIDEO: NBC Nightly News visits Andrew & Wendy Mutch. Open to the public. contacting them by clicking on their name. 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. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014.
national database of sears homes Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. the case of the Anstett family of Torrington, Connecticut. 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. Some models of Sears homes were very similar in design to models offered by other kit home manufacturers or through plan books. 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. All these years later it is still a fortress.. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed to share their names with others who might be interested in contacting them by clicking on their name. small-town America even into the 1940 census). Click to visit. The NHPD is the only de-duplicated source for comprehensive data on the publicly supported housing property inventory. 159 examples that have a closed pediment in the gable (and a porch style difference). Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. But before all this, having to get your own home built was more common instead of getting on a waitlist for a HUD-subsidized tract home or buying one secondhand from the current occupant. She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. Historic house: Built in 1911, this Sears home sits on a large, corner lot in a historic district, surrounded by antebellum homes. Molly Harbst of Munhall sent along photos of her beautifully preserved Sears homes a 1920 model called The Crescent after reading the article. Im looking at this cute little. muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript .
Newport Beach home dangling on edge after cliff collapses Photo from Realtor site. 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. 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. "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. Then, we always get a chuckle when the legal description includes things like, "by a large Elm tree" or "100 feet past a stone marker". 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.
Teen hikers rescued after days stuck in California snowstorm Precut lumber was cut to the appropriate lengths and angles based on where the framing timber would be used in the house. 5 Jun. For this week's listing of the week, we decided to find seven charming Sears Catalog homes you can actually buy today.