Sadly, surviving Argyles do tend to be heavily altered there are probably lots more hiding in plain sight. 172, later marketed as the. Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. 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. 175 (in 1913). 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. She said she didnt know the house was built from a kit ordered from a catalog until after she bought it. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Please contact me if you would like a free 110 (, 1524 2nd Street, La Porte, Indiana earliest version of the Sears No. How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? See that curled element at the hinge edge? Welcome to Sears Homes! If those were the top sellers, no model could catch the Argyle at that rate. 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. Is My House a Sears House? The Nine Easy Signs. - Sears Modern Homes You'll also notice that the No. So Betcone gave us a huge clue as to what the top seller for Sears was. Our goal is always to authenticate these houses through mortgage and deed research, or other primary sources, but, when that is not possible, we apply a careful, team approach to analyzing each house that goes on our national list. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" Click here. 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 moving easier. Sears's use of "balloon style" framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as did previous methods. The Greenview/No. If you have any authenticating source for us, we'd love to hear about it (you can email me directly at SearsHouseSeeker@gmail.com). Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the 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. 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. 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. I see you posted about the origins of Hollywood three years ago! 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). Without complete sales records, we cannot say definitively that the Sears Argyle was the top seller. 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? While the bathroom and kitchen of this 1920 Sears mail-order house in Munhall called The Crescent have been updated, most of the homes original features remain unchanged, said owner Molly Harbst, who learned it was among the first homes built in her Homestead Park neighborhood. Argyles also have a tendency to hide. By Posted on Mar 10, 2021. national database of sears homes. Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. Our research team especially loves searching Pennsylvania for Sears houses because there are so many there, Chabot said. 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. So, I put together a list, but I decided to provide some clarifying background information in that blog post, too-- it's especially intended to help those who might hear the term Craftsman, and think it means Sears House, or who see a 1920s bungalow and wonder if that means that the street is lined with Sears houses, or who find marked lumber in their house, but can't seem to find a match to a Sears model. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). Because the Modern Homes division sales records were destroyed, there is no way to definitively verify the number of Sears houses that still exist. It wasnt until she was in her 20s that Chabot learned about the homes history. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. Simple theme. In fact, the No. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had To see a variety of models similar to the Mitchell, that were offered during the kit-house era, see this article. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati Rosemary Thornton The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. 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. ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? Where Are The Rest Of The Sears Houses In The U.S.? Hi, Lauren! 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. Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? 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. Sears houses could also be ordered with reversed floor plans. Marie's great-grandfather, Freeman Pretzinger, built this Sears. Square . There havent been any major structural changes, she said. Browse the list below to see if there are Modern Homes in your Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. 306 Highland, Madison, WI. Lara and Cindy were joined by Andrew Mutch, who is based out of his own Sears house, in Novi, Michigan. 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. 264B155. The kit was greatly modified by Lane's ambitious designs. 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. The rest of these models are singletons, from the mid 1920s to early 1930s. The NHPD is the only de-duplicated source for comprehensive data on the publicly supported housing property inventory. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. During the Modern Homes program, large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. She said she also didnt know it was a mail-order house when she bought it 14 years ago. Damn, it was like Stardew Valley! Andrew spotted these two houses right next to each other, on W 11th Street: a No. Parts for the homes, which were sold between 1908 and 1940, were delivered to the nearest rail station. Sears Homes 1908-1914 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). Sears houses can be identified or authenticated using the following methods. Chabot notes that Sears mail-order homes sold before 1916 did not use precut lumber that was stamped with numbers to guide construction. the case of the Anstett family of Torrington, Connecticut. Without facts and sales records, we can make an educated guess. 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. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. During the later era of pre-cut houses, we don't usually put homes on our list, if they have these kinds of design differences. 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. Your comment will appear after it has been previewed and approved by the blog author. In a second blog post, I'll show the several probable kit houses that we've found in LaPorte, Indiana, from other companies. small-town America even into the 1940 census). Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. Originally marketed as the. It looks almost like a Sears, And, finally, we have this pretty rare model, the Sears. Powered by, This September 2017 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this short video story by the Washington Post. The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004. We maintain the National Database of Sears Houses in the U.S., where we add new finds, almost daily. Here is the Uriel or Conway at 408 Bond Street. This means that information about the Modern Homes department is scarce. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! 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 when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all Designs may have been modified but generally should match in layout and dimensions. 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. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression until 1940. Sales peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression. Or, perhaps we have background information about it to share with you!Judith. 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. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. This is what these two models look like, in the catalogs (these are from the 1911/1912 catalog): Up until this point, we weren't really sure what the difference was between these two models. Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. 02, 2023 : History: Catalogs: Homes: Products: Brands: Stores: People Historic Homes : . We also find street names that have changed (without our knowing that), or, especially for folks who bought their house in 1930-32 (the waning years of the mortgage program), we find that folks lost their homes during the depression, so we can't pin them down using the 1930 or 1940 census records. Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey - Sears House Seeker I know of several other models in McCandless. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. We loosely refer to ourselves by the name. The suburbs of Philadelphia are not the only places where we find Sears houses, by the way. From that, we have to try to connect all of that to an existing street address. Additionally, at this point in the Sears Modern Homes program, the homes were sold/packaged only with standard-length wood, so none of the framing lumber would have been pre-cut (and, therefore, there would be no alpha-numeric stamps on the wood pieces in the house). 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. Images are available 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. Photo from Realtor site. Damn, it was like. [7] Early mortgage loans were typically for 5 to 15 years at 6% to 7% interest. Jud Yoho may also have been the designer behind the popular Sears model called the Hollywood. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! If you are a Historical Society interested in awarding plaques for specific homes understood to be Sears houses, please feel free to contact us to verify for you that the house does match a model offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. When 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. Mrs. Lask had been a well-respected and well-known docent at the Cincinnati Historical Society, who led interesting bus tours and lectures about Cincinnati architectural history, when she embarked on this project in the 1990s (which she did while in her 70s-- a testament to the concept of life-long learning). Determining which company manufactured a particular catalog and kit home may require additional research to determine the origin of that home. People need move-in ready housing and they need it fast, whether single professionals are seeking apartments and luxury condos or families need affordable freestanding houses. 5008". Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed 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. 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. Ha! 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. 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. 159 examples that have a closed pediment in the gable (and a porch style difference). Tailor the data to your community to help preserve your local assets or explore national data to better understand the need for affordable housing and the dynamics of the publicly supported housing market. Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". 1916 Sears Roebuck Modern Homes. But, as of this date in 2021, here are leading areas in the U.S. with high numbers of Sears houses. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. 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. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. In some cases, homeowners used plans from original Sears homes to recreate a modern version of a Sears home. 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 search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the Michigan, Indiana, and New Jersey have large overall numbers, as well. Pre-cut lumber reduced construction time by up to 40%, according to Sears. 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". 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. Please contact me if you would like a free I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. Precut lumber was cut to the appropriate lengths and angles based on where the framing timber would be used in the house. 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. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. 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 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. Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. Modest half-timbering in the gables, exposed rafters, knee braces, and gable-end ridge finials combine to create an optimistic facade. 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. Identifying Sears Homes | Sears Modern Homes What was up with this particular model of home building, and are there any original Sears houses left? According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. The Sears Argyle was named after Argyle Street in Chicago. This is a complete list of Sears houses in Aurora (and two in Montgomery that were originally in Aurora). Photo from Lake County Assessor. Not all Sears houses became private residences. I considered putting a full chart here, but, honestly, we have found hundreds through searching the suburban PA counties outside of Philadelphia. This picture came from an original set of Sears "Honor Bilt" blueprints. We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it. "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. 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. The best guidebook to the basic history of the Sears Modern Homes program, is the book, Houses By Mail, put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and written by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl. Kushel is credited with suggesting to Richard Sears that the company assemble kits of all the parts needed and sell entire houses through mail order. You can clearly see a major difference on this side of the houses. While the vast majority of models were for single-family house designs, Sears offered some duplex house designs and even a few larger multiple-family buildings. The Top-Selling Sears Kit House - Sears Homes 1916 Sears Roebuck Modern Homes. rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. Our list, by the way, began in the early years of our research group. 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. In late 1930, sales of Searshomes were starting to tank. national database of sears homes - nyomkovetes-blog.hu A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. While I'm at it, I'll tell you a bit about our mission, as a research team. Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. That's what happens But at the time, there was a housing boom taking place as people wanted to escape the crowds and disease of the cities. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. 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. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all Whitehouse. Sears offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. Im looking at this cute little. But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. . 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. We saw that on numerous Rossville/No. excited about this find and I really hope it is one: a Sears No. 1232 / No. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, We started looking around La Porte, Indiana, in 2015. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. 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. 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). Chuck Holtzen has joined up with Lara to do research in Illinois, and has been helpful in adding a number of authenticated houses to our list. national database of sears homes. Click on any of the linked house listings to view a picture . 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. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Sears Modern Homes were sold between 1908 and 1942. 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. In 1906, Frank W. Kushel, a Sears manager, was given responsibility for the catalog company's unwieldy, unprofitable building-materials department. We've found examples from the Wardway, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Homes, and Ray H. Bennett companies. [2] No comprehensive list of their locations exists.[3]. I hope you found this informative, and learned that Sears houses come in lots of shapes, sizes, and styles. Some builders and companies purchased houses directly from Sears to build as model homes, speculative homes, or homes for customers or employees.
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