To drum up business, Sears issued a press release to newspapers across the United States. 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. Browse the list below to see if there are Modern Homes in your
More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images and more are now available online. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. 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. 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. Modern Home 264B110 - Farmhouse style - 1916 Sears House Plans Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. 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. 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. 171 often has a full front porch that ends up extending all the way to the left side of the house. Chabot said while Sears wasnt the first or only company to sell mail-order homes, they were unique among the competition. 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. 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. 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). So, they are likely from Sears. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. . 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 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. 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. How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? Here is the catalog image, from the 1911/12 catalog: And here are two examples in La Porte. Thank you for visiting! This is the Lakeview area where we found most of the examples of the 115, 171, and 159, as well as a number of examples of the No. 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. Sears Homes 1908-1914 Statewide, about 1,900 Sears catalog homes have been identified. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. Sears House Seeker 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. national database of sears homes - thenscaa.com Modest half-timbering in the gables, exposed rafters, knee braces, and gable-end ridge finials combine to create an optimistic facade. Also, homes in southern Ohio may have financing documents through the "Norwood Sash and Door Company" of Norwood, Ohio. In some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. CNDDB Maps and Data. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. 199 models here in La Porte, are somewhat tweaked in their design, but we still do think that they are examples of that model. I hope you found this informative, and learned that Sears houses come in lots of shapes, sizes, and styles. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. In it, they included excerpts from an interview with David S. Betcone, who was the chief architect for Sears at the time. Cities with large numbers of documented Sears Modern Homes include: The Carlinville, Illinois, concentration consists of houses bought in bulk by the Standard Oil Company in 1918 to house its mineworkers at a total cost of about US $1 million. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. I was intrigued by the concept of people picking out a house from a catalog, she said. Im looking at this cute little. Welcome to Sears Homes! Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? presentation, nows your chance! Newport Beach home dangling on edge after cliff collapses Complete List of Sears Homes | Aurora, IL Designs may have been modified but generally should match in layout and dimensions. So, Can We See Some Philly Suburbs Sears 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]. 2) Look for shipping labels. 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. 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. The Top-Selling Sears Kit House - Sears Homes Data Portal - NASA The House that Came in the Mail - 99% Invisible We have not surveyed all areas of the country equally. 172, later marketed as the. 159 examples that have a closed pediment in the gable (and a porch style difference). Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. 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. 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. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. 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. 168 / Matoka: I am really (really!) One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. 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. But the houses don't match any of the designs that Sears sold in their catalogs. Due to reviews by homeowners then and now, it would appear that Sears Modern Homes are just as appreciated now as they were then. You'll also notice that the No. That's what happens Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". Welcome to Sears Homes! 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. 171 examples in La Porte. Other models only appeared for one year. 2023 Trib Total Media | All Rights Reserved. New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. Molly Harbst of Munhall sent along photos of her beautifully preserved Sears homes a 1920 model called The Crescent after reading the article. 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. Homes Index 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. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" 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. In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all 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. The HMS data portal is a collection of models, simulations and synthetic observations of the Sun. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. 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). 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 . Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. [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. If yours is not one of those, please let us know :) We are confident about all three being Sears houses, but have not been able to authenticate any of them (with mortgage or deed records, blueprints, shipping labels, letters from Sears, or marked lumber). In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. Click to visit. 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). This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". Many of these homes were built in Sears planned "Home Club Plan" developments in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.[9][10][11]. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter . If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. Marie gives the perfect explanation of our Sears House hunt, in this. 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". 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. 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. Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs. 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. 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. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. , 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. You'll notice that most are in states east of the Mississippi River, with highest overall state totals in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. So Betcone gave us a huge clue as to what the top seller for Sears was. Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. Today, those marks can help prove that you have a kit home. small-town America, 1920! ), or streets that have houses with no designated house number (yes, again! The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. This system used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). That's what happens 1232, later marketed as the No. 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.. national database of sears homes. Simply put, life was rougher. Thanks for giving me a new appreciation for the Argyle! The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. 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! New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. 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. Marie's great-grandfather, Freeman Pretzinger, built this Sears. [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. 175 (in 1913). Pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to 40%, according to Sears. Wonderful, Malissa! 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). Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". Measuring in at a roomy 3,500 square feet, the . R.L. Hunter Press: Mail Order House Research 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? [4] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. I-79 restrictions begin Wednesday night in Allegheny County, West Deer firefighters respond to bedroom fire, heavy smoke at Poplar Street home, Man shot dead in McKeesport the 4th slaying this week and 5th in a month, Medical examiner IDs man killed in McKeesport shooting, Report on Allegheny County Jail deaths finds no 'trends or common factors' that led to them, Historic Hempfield cemetery seeks volunteers, donors to help care for grounds, 2nd annual 'Restaurant Ramble' features 10 downtown New Kensington eateries, Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan actor, dies after brain aneurysm, TV Talk: Mel Brooks History of the World, Part II belatedly arrives on Hulu, Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source, story about a 1922 Sears mail-order home in McCandless, number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. 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). [14], In addition to houses, the 1908 Sears catalog offered a kit schoolhouse with the model name "Schoolhouse No. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. 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. 162 Sears houses still standing, including those in the city of Alexandria. Thanks! Originally marketed as the. Michigan, Indiana, and New Jersey have large overall numbers, as well. Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932. Balloon framing systems rely only on nails to make connections between joints, whereas previous methods used heavier members and pegs. A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. This is the case for the southern New Jersey counties that are suburbs 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. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. Tailor the data to your community to help preserve your local assets or explore national data to better understand the need for affordable housing and the dynamics of the publicly supported housing market. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! 159, except for a closed pediment up in the front and side gable. And it led me to dig a little deeper into the history of my community.. 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. Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. I don't know the model, but it was a 2 story - 6 room house - 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, living room, dining room, and very small galley type kitchen. 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. 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. . Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; national database of sears homes - nyomkovetes-blog.hu But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes. took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. Car culture hadnt yet arrived, but trains and trolleys began extending to these greener areas that were still pretty empty so you could visit or work in the city. Many of the smaller models are regularly torn down. ", "Sears Houses of Massapequa Park, New York", "Made to Order: Many American Dreams Came Out of the Sears Catalog, Including Do-It-Yourself Houses", "Yesterday's kit houses are today's sought-after properties", "The Story on Sears: Houses by rail and mail", "Syracuse house, which came from a Sears catalog, is one of only seven of its kind in U.S.", "The House Is in the Mail: 'Kit homes' from Sears and others were an affordable housing option", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sears_Modern_Homes&oldid=1142882633, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. 126 and a Sears No. 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. of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. In real life, with its two full stories, the whole house is a much taller house than the Rossville/171 or the Greenview/115. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. 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. Andrew is our number-cruncher, and his blog, I joined the team shortly after Lara, Cindy and Andrew began, in earnest, to log the homes that they were finding. In the companys own words, Sears didnt really innovate home building. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. 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. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. Sears houses can be identified or authenticated using the following methods. *Sears Americus - Temple, PA*It's been about 3 months since the last update The search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. Home Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? homes for rent in laplace 70068. national database of sears homes. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! 115 cuts off abruptly, right in the middle of the front facade, even with the left side of the upper window, and it then has a straight slope porch roof jutting out. The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004. 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.