Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. Some of the most popular models were:[12], The largest and one of the most expensive Sears models was the Magnolia. But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. ", "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? Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. I see you posted about the origins of Hollywood three years ago! 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. small-town America, 1920! 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 national database of sears homes - thanhvi.net contacting them by clicking on their name. 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. 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. 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? 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 . Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. 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. Other models only appeared for one year. In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it. presentation, nows your chance! Powered by, Table of Sears Houses in La Porte, Indiana. 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. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. Our list, by the way, began in the early years of our research group. 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. Asbury Methodist Village Communications Dept. More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images and more are now available online. Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. 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. 06/16/2022 . 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma 920 North Madison Avenue, Anderson, Indiana Asking: $379,900 Sears Roebuck Model: Elmhurst Year Built: 1932 Listing Agent: Julie Armington Listing Brokerage: F.C. This phrase is trademarked and cannot be used without permission of Ricky Bobby, Inc. 159. 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. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. Natural Resources DataBase - NRDB Lara was joined by researcher Cindy Catanzaro, who researches especially in Ohio, and writes the blog. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. Photo from Realtor site. 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. by . No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. 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. [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. [34], Like the Standard Addition in Carlinville, neighborhoods of Sears houses still hold a sense of identity and community. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. 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. I saw a recent article in The Star Ledger about Sears Homes that mentioned your blog. 2) Look for shipping labels. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. 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. [17] Later on in the Modern Homes timeline, Sears had in-office designers but titled them as "experts" rather than actual architects.[17]. A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression until 1940. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. You'll also notice that the No. Sears Houses In the U.S. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. 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? Homes Index The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. Home - National Housing Preservation Database (NHPD) Click here. Welcome to Sears Homes! 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). Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. to share their names with others who might be interested in
It's highly improbable that any model could hit the 1,700 mark. 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. Home Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Because the various kit home companies often copied plan elements or designs from each other, there are a number of catalog and kit models from different manufacturers that look similar or identical to models offered by Sears. 171 examples in La Porte. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. 171 often has a full front porch that ends up extending all the way to the left side of the house. [2] No comprehensive list of their locations exists.[3]. 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. Images are available Interested in hearing about Rose's near-death experience? website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. When the. Some models were offered in both wood siding and brick veneer versions with different names attributed to the same or almost identical home plan. Photo from Lake County Assessor. The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. 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. In a second blog post, I'll show the several probable kit houses that we've found in LaPorte, Indiana, from other companies. 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. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? 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. 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. 1916 Sears Roebuck Modern Homes. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. 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 just loved the look of it, she said. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. Here is the Uriel or Conway at 408 Bond Street. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. 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. Like this page to learn about homes purchased as kits through mail order catalogs. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). to you on Flickr or Pinterest. This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the I don't feel comfortable making that assumption. rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. The House that Came in the Mail - 99% Invisible When we find a mortgage record, we're just given a buyer's name, and a legal description of a property. 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). 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). 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. national database of sears homes - nyomkovetes-blog.hu Rockstar, Consistent Trees, and Baryon Mass data from the Generation 3 and Generation 6 VELA Simulations. 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. The Top-Selling Sears Kit House - Sears Homes From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. This label was discovered in a Sears Silverdale model home built in 1911 in Northhampton, Mass., by Judith Chabots grandparents. 5008". 7 Charming Sears Catalog Homes You Can Buy Today 1916 Sears Roebuck Modern Homes. From 1908 to 1940, the Sears Modern Homes Program offered complete mail-order houses to the would-be homeowner what would come to be called "kit homes." Customers could select from dozens of different models in Sears Modern Homes Catalog, order blueprints, send in a check, and a few weeks later everything they needed would arrive in a train car, its door secured with a small red wax . I considered putting a full chart here, but, honestly, we have found hundreds through searching the suburban PA counties outside of Philadelphia. 181, Sears No. However, based on what the experts said in that Atlas Obscura piece, youre most likely to find Sears homes in places where railroad stations once stood (or are lucky to still have) and where Sears factories had a major role on the local economy, like Cincinnati. She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. In real life, with its two full stories, the whole house is a much taller house than the Rossville/171 or the Greenview/115. 306 Highland, Madison, WI. 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. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern Homes. 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. Also, homes in southern Ohio may have financing documents through the "Norwood Sash and Door Company" of Norwood, Ohio. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. The most popular models appeared in the catalog for multiple years. national database of sears homes. See that curled element at the hinge edge? Finally, if you really want to understand the basics of what a Sears Modern Homes kit house is, and what it is not, you might find this blog post of mine to be helpful and informative. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. Welcome to the New NSCAA. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. Simply put, life was rougher. Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as did previous methods. . Jud Yoho may also have been the designer behind the popular Sears model called the Hollywood. Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932. 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. My home reminds me of that type of architecture.. Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; However, many houses described as Sears Homes are not true Sears Homes, being either the product of another kit home manufacturer or not a kit home at all. We soon realized that she had a keen eye for Sears houses (and a keen love for them, as her great-grandfather had built a Sears Martha Washington in Oakwood, Ohio), and she joined our research group. The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. Orders were placed by mail, the See more 5,581 people like this 5,890 people follow this https://www.searshouses.com/ cyn.catanzaro@gmail.com 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. Today, those marks can help prove that you have a kit home. Damn, it was like. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! Square . 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. 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). Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. 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 offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. 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. [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]. some ch Don't miss this never before seen catalog from Sears. Shipping label image from my mother's family's 1911 Sears No. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. Prefab homes arent exactly an exotic concept nowadays. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. 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. Sears discontinued its Modern Homes catalog after 1940, though sales through local sales offices continued into 1942. That's why we love seeking them out! Sears Modern Homes - Home | Facebook Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. 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. We just can't say, because we can't access those records. We've seen this in Carlinville, Illinois, and we've seen this with large orders of homes bought from Aladdin and from Gordon-Van Tine. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). 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! True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold nearly 75,000 kit homes through its Modern Homes program, which featured 447 styles of houses, ranging from large multistory dwellings to tiny summer cottages with an optional outhouse. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? Advertisements for Sears Modern Homes appeared through May 1942. Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. In it, they included excerpts from an interview with David S. Betcone, who was the chief architect for Sears at the time. For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: All photos in these blog posts are the property of the author of this blog- link to this blog. Here is a year-by-year list of houses as they were advertised in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. Our research team especially loves searching Pennsylvania for Sears houses because there are so many there, Chabot said. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. 199 (the predecessor to the Sears, We've put eleven houses on our list that we are pretty confident are the early version of the. Shipped by railroad boxcar, and then usually trucked to a home site, the average Sears Modern Home kit had about 25 tons of materials, with more than 30,000 parts. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. 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. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. In fact, the No. 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. How do we know another house didn't outsell the Argyle after 1931? Because the Modern Homes division sales records were destroyed, there is no way to definitively verify the number of Sears houses that still exist.
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