162 Sears houses still standing, including those in the city of Alexandria. Molly Harbst of Munhall sent along photos of her beautifully preserved Sears homes a 1920 model called The Crescent after reading the article. Sears Is Crumbling, but These 9 Sears Catalog Homes Stand Tall 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. Stamped lumber: Most easily found in unfinished spaces like a basement or attic, framing members were stamped with a letter and a number. Chabot said while Sears wasnt the first or only company to sell mail-order homes, they were unique among the competition. R.L. Hunter Press: Mail Order House Research to share their names with others who might be interested in Had the. New models were introduced every year, and some only stuck around for a couple years. According to a review written by Mary Ann O'Boyle of Takoma Park, Maryland, her Sears home feels "unabashedly American, the kind of house you see in movies about the good old days" and "allows me to connect with the past". Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. [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. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. Her parents did not care much for the house and eventually moved back into their original farmhouse. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. *Sears Americus - Temple, PA*It's been about 3 months since the last update 159, except for a closed pediment up in the front and side gable. Or did we just go wrong somewhere when someone decided the house you live in should be treated like a bank? ", "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. ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. You can clearly see a major difference on this side of the houses. Photo from Realtor site. Chabot notes that Sears mail-order homes sold before 1916 did not use precut lumber that was stamped with numbers to guide construction. [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]. We have three on our list in Glenside -- one on Cedar, one on Tyson, and one on Edge Hill Rd. A high-speed chase involving an armed carjacking suspect ended in Los Angeles Friday afternoon when the suspect crashed into a police vehicle, and then into a pole. How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? To see a variety of models similar to the Mitchell, that were offered during the kit-house era, see this article. What was up with this particular model of home building, and are there any original Sears houses left? rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. The windows, the kitchen and the bathroom were updated over the years, but it is still very much the house it was when it was built.. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. 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. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. 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. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. So, Can We See Some Philly Suburbs Sears Houses? [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. 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! House was moved to Carbondale, CO in about 1972, Still trying to find more info.. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. Sometimes researchers get lucky and find facts and figures in old company newsletters, personal papers of Sears managers and executives, historical newspapers, and archival interviews conducted with people who worked in the department in the 1930's and 1940's. If you have any information on a Sears house or a style that is not identified, please notify the Preservation Commission. I don't feel comfortable making that assumption. 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. It even halted sales of houses themselves for a short time before restarting sales. Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. Powered by, This September 2017 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this short video story by the Washington Post. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). In fact, the No. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. 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. catalogs for all central and satellite halos down to 10^06 MSun. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. The article explained that Sears had already sold five houses that were in the midst of construction, and these first houses were all of three different models, and at least 50 more would be built with the possibility that a total of 200 might find their way to the streets of La Porte (it doesn't look like that happened). Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. Local Sears house enthusiast Karen DeJeet, who owns a Hamilton model in Forest Hills and is a member of the Sears House Finder team, has already done much of the work identifying the mail-order homes still standing in the region. Without authentication, however, we can't be 100% certain that this house was ordered from Sears, as numerous kit and non-kit companies offered a very similar model, and these kinds of stories that are passed down over time, often turn out to be mistaken (with the house actually being a model from a different kit company, or simply resembling a model offered by Sears). [4] Other homeowners relied on local carpenters or contractors to assemble the houses. The next housing boom came after World War II so that veterans could have affordable housing for their families and suburbs could accommodate the massive amount of white flight taking place. 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. 171's porch roof (when it is a partial porch) connects to the house far to the right side of that upper window and then has a wedge-shape side part to that roof, so that both models end the porch just to the edge of the front door, but with a very different treatment to the shape of the porch roof there. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? 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". Search. [14], In addition to houses, the 1908 Sears catalog offered a kit schoolhouse with the model name "Schoolhouse No. Some of the most popular models were:[12], The largest and one of the most expensive Sears models was the Magnolia. . After several years, Sears also began assigning names to the various models. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. 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. 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? My father knew the local builder (Mr. Humphreys) who put the house together. Damn, it was like. Excuse me while I openly weep thinking about how many vacation cottages today probably cost the same or even more than, 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. 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 Looks like Yoho probably bought plan #466 from H. L. Wilson, the actual designer. Simply put, life was rougher. Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! 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 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 some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. The new owner was a Sears House fan - even produced a short doc film about the house and how she updated it. Lara was joined by researcher Cindy Catanzaro, who researches especially in Ohio, and writes the blog. Images are available In other cases, the home followed the general design of a Sears house without being an exact duplicate. Depending on where you live, the thought of just building a small or medium sized house can sound totally bizarre or perhaps totally doable if youve got miles and miles of wide open space to work with. In the story, homeowner Alicia Dallago said she had no idea the home she bought in 1998 was built from a kit. 172, later marketed as the. Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. 506 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears No. I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! Sears, Roebuck and Company's Modern Homes program began in 1908 and ended in 1940. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. The NHPD is the only de-duplicated source for comprehensive data on the publicly supported housing property inventory. Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. 175 (in 1913). 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. 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. They had. 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. Teen hikers rescued after days stuck in California snowstorm Sears Modern Homes were sold between 1908 and 1942. Compare that to about 330 million people today. 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. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. No built examples have been found of some of the least popular models. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" Designs may have been modified but generally should match in layout and dimensions. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the That's what happens 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. 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. 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). Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. 3 in U.S. with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes. That's why we love seeking them out! It was built in 1917. 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.