In a second blog post, I'll show the several probable kit houses that we've found in LaPorte, Indiana, from other companies. It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. 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. To drum up business, Sears issued a press release to newspapers across the United States. The house forms part of the farmstead at the museum.[40]. Some models were offered in both wood siding and brick veneer versions with different names attributed to the same or almost identical home plan. 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. Several Sears Modern Homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 159 has two full stories on that non-porch side of the house. Among those chiming in about the article was Judith Chabot of St. Louis, Mo., who runs SearsHouseSeekers.com, which serves as a depository for information gathered by Sears home enthusiasts across the country. [34], Like the Standard Addition in Carlinville, neighborhoods of Sears houses still hold a sense of identity and community. 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. Historic house: Built in 1911, this Sears home sits on a large, corner lot in a historic district, surrounded by antebellum homes. According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. 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. The Preservation Commission has identified a majority of the styles, but since many are modified it can be hard to tell. 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. Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". Betcone spoke of how housing styles were drastically changing and how many customers wanted more efficient, streamlined designs. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. Enjoy! I know of several other models in McCandless. In this case, the problem was that we couldn't see the left side of these models, just by looking at the catalog and the floor plans. Or, perhaps we have background information about it to share with you!Judith. Photo from Lake County Assessor. 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. national database of sears homes - assuredtriumph.com New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. 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. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. 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. In the companys own words, Sears didnt really innovate home building. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. . But who knows, maybe well see tiny shipping container homes in a museum someday after we take back the rest of the real estate after the revolution. At Greenlawn Cemetery, near the Hampton Roads waterfront in the Newport News, Virginia, area, the cemetery office building is a 1936 Sears Modern Home. [13] Only seven Magnolias are known to be still standing. I believe my parents were the 3rd owners purchasing the house in 1965 or 1966. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. Another gabled ell farmhouse that we found quite a few of in La Porte, is the No. Marie gives the perfect explanation of our Sears House hunt, in this. 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). Compare that to about 330 million people today. 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). People always seemed surprised to learn that Sears sold home kits. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. 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 wild pursuit began with an a We just love the Walton model! Complete List of Sears Homes | Aurora, IL 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". Its kind of exciting to learn that your home is unique because of the way it was bought and constructed, she said. CNDDB Maps and Data. If you have any authenticating source for us, we'd love to hear about it (you can email me directly at SearsHouseSeeker@gmail.com). This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! 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. Argyles also have a tendency to hide. This is the case for the southern New Jersey counties that are suburbs of Philadelphia. contacting them by clicking on their name. Would you mind messaging me with an address, so that we can add your Sears house to our (private) national database? Sadly, surviving Argyles do tend to be heavily altered there are probably lots more hiding in plain sight. Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? "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. 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! This means that information about the Modern Homes department is scarce. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" 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. 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. "The Sears Homes of Illinois" has more than 200 color photos of the most popular designs that Sears offered and can be very helpful in identifying Sears Homes. 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. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? 181, Sears No. Compare house designs to original catalog images. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . Either way, these houses offered variety and quality even if they werent necessarily innovative. The builder was W.L. 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. The American Lumberman article referred to this area where the houses were being built, as the Fairview neighborhood. The two-story schoolhouse was priced at $11,500 and its design included six classrooms, a library, an auditorium, and a superintendent's office. 2) Look for shipping labels. If home is where the heart is, then those living in houses built from Sears mail-order kits may have fallen head-over-heels. As its mail-order catalogs were already sent to millions of homes, Sears had a distinct advantage over other kit-home competitors. Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. Price: $179,900. The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. When the. 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. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. I just loved the look of it, she said. Modern Home 264B155 - Two-story Craftsman-style Bungalow - 1916 Sears Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932. Modern Home 264B110 - Farmhouse style - 1916 Sears House Plans Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. The most popular models appeared in the catalog for multiple years. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. Honor Bilt homes used the best quality materials that Sears could source and they were designed with what was then state of the art heating, plumbing, and electricity. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there!
