The two-story schoolhouse was priced at $11,500 and its design included six classrooms, a library, an auditorium, and a superintendent's office. 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. 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. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. [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. 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). It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. 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. Some of the most popular models were:[12], The largest and one of the most expensive Sears models was the Magnolia. 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. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. But, as of this date in 2021, here are leading areas in the U.S. with high numbers of Sears houses. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! Sears Modern Homes were kit homes and the framing members were stamped with a letter and a number to help facilitate construction. Another gabled ell farmhouse that we found quite a few of in La Porte, is the No. Argyles also have a tendency to hide. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears 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. Sarah is especially interested in searching the kit homes of Western New York State, and has found us some beautiful Sears houses, but she is especially revered by all of us for her extensive knowledge of kits from the Ray H. Bennett kit homes company, which was based out of North Tonawanda. 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. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. 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). 1227 Disston St, Oxford Circle neighborhood of Philadelphia. 159. Im looking at this cute little. A recent Tribune-Review story about a 1922 Sears mail-order home in McCandless that has most of its original features intact drew scores of letters and comments from Pittsburgh area residents interested in learning more about the unique role these houses played in U.S. history. Rosemary Thornton Rockstar, Consistent Trees, and Baryon Mass data from the Generation 3 and Generation 6 VELA Simulations. At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. Michigan, Indiana, and New Jersey have large overall numbers, as well. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! A kick-off celebration was held March 3, 2023, for the newly renamed BMO Stadium. ), or streets that have houses with no designated house number (yes, again! Sears Modern Homes built in the 1930s may have a small circled "SR" cast into the bathtub in the lower corner (furthest from the tub spout and near the floor) and on the underside of the kitchen or bathroom sink. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. 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. It's highly improbable that any model could hit the 1,700 mark. 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. Her parents did not care much for the house and eventually moved back into their original farmhouse. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. 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. Compare that to about 330 million people today. 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. Let's take a look at a comparison of that side, for these two models: Also, the front view shows us how the front porch roof connects to the house differently, across these two models. Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. 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. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . Compare house designs to original catalog images. Basic cross-gabled two-story farmhouses are to be found almost everywhere in towns and cities as well as many rural areas throughout the United States. 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. 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. Sears, Roebuck and Company's Modern Homes program began in 1908 and ended in 1940. There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. national database of sears homes. easier. Fast forward to this past summer --early August of 2022. 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". The last Sears Modern Homes catalog was issued in 1940. 1232, later marketed as the No. Chabot said while Sears wasnt the first or only company to sell mail-order homes, they were unique among the competition. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. 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. In some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. 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. : Ohio is the state with the largest number, Pennsylvania is the third- highest-ranking state, Prince George's County, MD & Montgomery County, MD. Historic Homes Images of Sears Homes Click on the associated link for a collection of images and photographs of almost all 447 house designs sold through the Sears Modern Homes program. We just can't say, because we can't access those records. I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. 3 in U.S. with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes. Marie's great-grandfather, Freeman Pretzinger, built this Sears. Open to the public. *Sears Americus - Temple, PA*It's been about 3 months since the last update 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. But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. 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. Not all Sears houses became private residences. 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, Sears No 137 In Mendham, New Jersey, Morris County. Your comment will appear after it has been previewed and approved by the blog author. This is just the top of the blog page you'll find dozens of links to online catalogs here, a link to the excellent Pinterest resource made for us by Sears-house owner Dale Haynes, and a list of hard-copy book resources that are both interesting and informative. , in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. Whitehouse. Originally marketed as the. Interested in hearing about Rose's near-death experience? 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? 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 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. 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. You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter . Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, We started looking around La Porte, Indiana, in 2015. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. And, to top it off, Gordon-Van Tine has a model almost the same. 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. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. Simple theme. . On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. Open to the public. Here are a few: Andrew just today noticed this brick house with the Sears curlicue decorative iron strapping (only offered by Sears, and the only style of iron strapping ever offered by Sears). I think that one of our researchers, Lara Solonickne. I think that maybe Google maps Streetview wasn't great quality on many of the streets. 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. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. 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 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. 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. We have a database of all the models that have been identified nationwide to date. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression until 1940. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. 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. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. The Sears Tower is nearly finished. The ability to mass-produce the materials used in Sears homes reduced manufacturing costs, which allowed Sears to pass along the savings in lower prices for customers. In their own way, houses with Craftsman-style design elements often managed their own form of ebullient excess such as Modern Home No. Photo from Realtor site. 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. Checklist Search provides a simple and fast way to generate a pre-formatted checklist suitable for printing. Without complete sales records, we cannot say definitively that the Sears Argyle was the top seller. 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. It is unknown whether any were purchased or built. small-town America even into the 1940 census). HBM (. 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. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database?