national database of sears homes national database of sears homes

The rest of these models are singletons, from the mid 1920s to early 1930s. 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. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. Instead, shipping labels were affixed to the backside of trim that identified properties. In their own way, houses with Craftsman-style design elements often managed their own form of ebullient excess such as Modern Home No. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. This Sears mail-order house named The Crescent was built in Munhall in 1920, according to owner Molly Harbst. Freestanding suburban or rural homes were more likely to stand alone in undeveloped lots instead of planned tracts that were set aside by federal and state governments and/or builders that had uniformity in mind. 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. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". Our list, by the way, began in the early years of our research group. 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. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. [17] Later on in the Modern Homes timeline, Sears had in-office designers but titled them as "experts" rather than actual architects.[17]. Simple theme. 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. Years later, the sales records related to home sales were destroyed during a corporate house cleaning. Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the However, the streets that are lined with these farmhouse models (and many other houses), are actually in the Lakeview neighborhood so, we imagine that was a mistake in the article. If you don't know what that means, look at these two examples, and note where the orange arrow points that little extra strip of roofing that makes a sort of closed triangle. 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). 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. The Preservation Commission has identified a majority of the styles, but since many are modified it can be hard to tell. 168 (Matoka): Here is the catalog image of the No. 159, except for a closed pediment up in the front and side gable. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? 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. Other models only appeared for one year. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. 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. Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! 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! A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. Sears also offered a plasterboard product similar to modern drywall as an alternative to the plaster and lath wall-building techniques which required skilled carpenters and plasterers. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois in particular are your best bet for finding Sears homes although Newark, New Jersey apparently still has a couple. Checklist Search provides a simple and fast way to generate a pre-formatted checklist suitable for printing. Sears Modern Homes were kit homes and the framing members were stamped with a letter and a number to help facilitate construction. Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. 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. 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). CNDDB Maps and Data. Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. 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. 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. If you have any authenticating source for us, we'd love to hear about it (you can email me directly at SearsHouseSeeker@gmail.com). Sales were down, and there was excess inventory languishing in warehouses. Thanks for giving me a new appreciation for the Argyle! But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. 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. 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. Here is a year-by-year list of houses as they were advertised in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. 126 and a Sears No. More than 100 years of stories, product and brand histories, photographs, catalog images and more are now available online. I have the Farnum in New Brighton PA. 1929. I love finding these houses and learning more about them, the different models that were sold and the people who bought them.. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. And it led me to dig a little deeper into the history of my community.. 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. [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]. 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. ", "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? I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. While researching the property, Harbst learned it was among the first homes built in the boroughs Homestead Park neighborhood. Buyers could hire a contractor to assemble their home or build it themselves following the detailed instructions that were included. I'm sure it was Matthew who cleared up for me that the No. Some models of Sears homes were very similar in design to models offered by other kit home manufacturers or through plan books. Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. For this week's listing of the week, we decided to find seven charming Sears Catalog homes you can actually buy today. Sears discontinued its Modern Homes catalog after 1940, though sales through local sales offices continued into 1942. Homes built after 1916 can be identified as Sears kit homes by numbers stamped on the timbers. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. Some of the most popular models were:[12], The largest and one of the most expensive Sears models was the Magnolia. 181 (264P181) in the 1914 Sears Modern Homes catalog, This image is from the 1913 Sears Modern Homes catalog re-print, available, 374 Hawthorne Street, La Porte, Indiana Sears Modern Home No. 168 / Matoka: I am really (really!) The group has identified 2,700 Sears homes in Ohio and 2,300 in Illinois. 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. 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.. Chabot runs a national website dedicated to gathering and sharing information about Sears mail-order homes. [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. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. Charleston, West Virginia is a hotspot for Sears model homes, in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. HBM (. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. There is some debate about whether some homes from Sears that were built in 1941 and 1942 qualify as Sears Modern 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. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. 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. 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. And Sears Modern Homes werent a monolith. We just can't say, because we can't access those records. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed Here is one of the eleven examples in La Porte: This early version of the No. Contains merger trees and halo . Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". 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. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. Parts for the homes, which were sold between 1908 and 1940, were delivered to the nearest rail station. 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. Telephone 847-697-4551. www.kithouse.org. 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.