Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. . 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. Compare house designs to original catalog images. 181 (264P181) in the 1914 Sears Modern Homes catalog, This image is from the 1913 Sears Modern Homes catalog re-print, available, 374 Hawthorne Street, La Porte, Indiana Sears Modern Home No. This product offered the advantages of low price, ease of installation, and added fire protection. The search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. ), or streets that have houses with no designated house number (yes, again! We just love the Walton model! The house that would soon become the Argyle in one of Yoho's magazines, 1913. June 1, 2022. by etc north vernon covid testing. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! 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. Precut framing timbers, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, were first offered by Sears in 1916. While researching the property, Harbst learned it was among the first homes built in the boroughs Homestead Park neighborhood. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. Rockstar, Consistent Trees, and Baryon Mass data from the Generation 3 and Generation 6 VELA Simulations. Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. 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. 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 . The new owner was a Sears House fan - even produced a short doc film about the house and how she updated it. [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? They raised four kids in that house, Steel wrote. The multi-million-dollar home has been red-tagged while two other 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. BMO, LAFC, and Angel City FC leaders were joined by special guests Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Mia Hamm for the . There havent been any major structural changes, she said. The HMS data portal is a collection of models, simulations and synthetic observations of the Sun. hennessy privilege limited edition / what is mc hammer doing now 2020 / national database of sears homes. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Fast forward to this past summer --early August of 2022. Many of these post 1940 homes were based on models from the 1940 and earlier Sears catalogs but not all were, leading to debate over whether these homes qualify as "Sears Modern Homes". [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. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes. 1. So, they are likely from Sears. One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. small-town America even into the 1940 census). Click on any of the linked house listings to view a picture . [5] The method was originally named in the sense that the structure was light and could be lifted away like a balloon. If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. 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. Jud Yoho may also have been the designer behind the popular Sears model called the Hollywood. Interested in hearing about Rose's near-death experience? This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. Fabricated houses sold primarily through mail order, Column detail from a Sears Vallonia house, pictured alongside its appearance in the catalog, Modern interpretations of Sears Modern Homes, "Did Sears, Roebuck Sell Homes in Canada? 1232 click. 2023 Trib Total Media | All Rights Reserved. Sears houses can be identified or authenticated using the following methods. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. Builders that already have both the funds and the skilled professionals in architecture, construction, and land use make it easier for the average person who only wants to worry about their career, move, and family. The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The builder was W.L. Photo from Realtor site. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. Simple theme. Other models only appeared for one year. Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes In the Philly S 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. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. From 1931-1942 Sears sold about 5,000 houses altogether. 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). Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. In late 1930, sales of Searshomes were starting to tank. 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. Not all Sears houses were mortgaged through Sears, but many were, so it's a great help for us to be able to access those records. They kept up with it, of course, but it sure has good bones. Andrew is responsible for adding hundreds (and hundreds) of Sears houses to our database, especially in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., in numerous counties in Michigan, and a gold mine of houses in Westchester County, New York, especially in Yonkers. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. 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. national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. Originally marketed as the. Author, researcher and lecturer Rebecca Hunter became fascinated with the phenomenon of mail order homes in 1996, and is currently engaged in the study of kit homes and agricultural buildings marketed from 1906-1982 by nine different companies. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. , 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. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. Public records: From 1911 to 1933, Sears offered home mortgages and Sears company officials or the Sears, Roebuck corporation may be named on the mortgage or deed associated with the property where the home was constructed. Search. Due to reviews by homeowners then and now, it would appear that Sears Modern Homes are just as appreciated now as they were then. 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. 1232 / No. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. 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 Atlanta and Chateau models were probably the great-grandaddy of the modern McMansion, with the Malden model being its odd little cousin that sits in the potato salad at the family reunion, what with the odd arrangement of dormer windows although they arent fake. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. [4] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. In 1916, Sears began shipping pre-cut lumber in its mail-order kit homes that contained stamped numbers used to match pieces during construction. 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. Wonderful, Malissa! Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. The. . Those kinds of topics are cleared up, in this blog post: When I chatted with Kevin Riordan, I also sent him a list of several nice Sears houses that he could consider photographing for his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? Price: $179,900. Action in the Community Through Service Homeless Shelter. [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. Tucker/Crossroads However, the streets that are lined with these farmhouse models (and many other houses), are actually in the Lakeview neighborhood so, we imagine that was a mistake in the article. Harbst said it wasnt until after she bought the house that she learned homes were once sold through mail-order catalogs. Later, Sears constructed a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. Simply put, life was rougher. small-town America, 1920! A kick-off celebration was held March 3, 2023, for the newly renamed BMO Stadium. 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. We maintain the National Database of Sears Houses in the U.S., where we add new finds, almost daily. 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. Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as did previous methods. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. 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. 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. This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. As I detailed in the account of the rise and fall of the Sears empire, this literally led them to become the largest retailer in America because they had so many burners going at onceand their Modern Homes kits, and even the home buying process itself, were part of that in addition to catalog and retail sales. Looking at the sorry state of Americas rail infrastructure today, this also makes me weep although today theyd just be delivered via truck. Ha! Chabot focuses her research on scouring mortgages and deed records, old newspaper articles and other sources to identify kit homes sold by Sears. 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. 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. 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. 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. . 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. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? 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). We have a database of all the models that have been identified nationwide to date. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. Click to visit. Sears Modern Homes were sold between 1908 and 1942. 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. I thought it was very interesting when I learned that you could also buy a house from their catalogs.. I think teardowns are the reason that Argyles are not positioned higher in our national database of Sears homes (the Argyle comes in at number 20). How did Sears Modern Homes come to be? Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed
Had the. Some builders and companies purchased houses directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes, or homes for customers or employees. city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. 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. 159. A number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. 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 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. I hope you found this informative, and learned that Sears houses come in lots of shapes, sizes, and styles. 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. Checklist Search provides a simple and fast way to generate a pre-formatted checklist suitable for printing. marlon brando children; pete the cat and his four groovy buttons comprehension questions; nolin lake conditions; dan majerle hall of fame; dayton floor drill press,belt of "Where are the Sears Houses?" However, we are pretty much limited to counties which have online accessible historic records, and to counties which we are able to physically visit to search in person this means that there are some counties out there with lots of undiscovered Sears houses, because we can't get to the records.