national database of sears homes

Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. [18] National and regional competitors in the catalog and kit home market included Aladdin, Bennett, Gordon-Van Tine, Harris Brothers, Lewis, Pacific Ready Cut Homes, Sterling and Montgomery Ward (Wardway) Homes. According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. 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. The Rossville/No. HBM (. Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and it's currently estimated that about 70% of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. 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. 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. 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. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. Chabot can help people identify if their home was built from a Sears kit if they provide her with an address of the property through the House Seekers website, which also has links to catalogs produced by the company and other sellers. The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. Some models were offered with variations, the most common of those being expanded floor plans and additional finished living spaces. Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". However, as you can see in the photos above, that showed the sides of the house, the Rossville/No. My home reminds me of that type of architecture.. 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. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? Washington D.C. and its nearby suburbs have an unusually rich cache of kit houses stashed away in some of the leafy, well-tended neighborhoods where 1920s houses still shine. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that about 70% of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. That year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first kit homes through mail order. Thousands of developments in cities, suburbs, and exurbs have sprung up since with a seemingly endless amount of homes that were built between World War II and today. It's likely that other Sears models can be traced to him as well. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the Residential construction was drastically down nationwide due to the Great Depression. My father knew the local builder (Mr. Humphreys) who put the house together. Measuring in at a roomy 3,500 square feet, the . In the story, homeowner Alicia Dallago said she had no idea the home she bought in 1998 was built from a kit. 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. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. In real life, with its two full stories, the whole house is a much taller house than the Rossville/171 or the Greenview/115. Andrew is our number-cruncher, and his blog, I joined the team shortly after Lara, Cindy and Andrew began, in earnest, to log the homes that they were finding. The most popular models appeared in the catalog for multiple years. The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. Other models only appeared for one year. muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript . Also, considering that the article was published in April of 1912, all of these models would have been marketed only with their number, as no word names were given to the models until 1916. Identifying Sears Homes has become a pastime among history enthusiasts because of their sturdy structure, the do-it-yourself nature of construction, and the popular architectural design concepts. hennessy privilege limited edition / what is mc hammer doing now 2020 / national database of sears homes. 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. Cities that have records of building permits may list Sears, Roebuck as the original architect. 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. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed This system used precut timber of mostly standard sizes (2"x4" and 2"x8") for framing. See that curled element at the hinge edge? As sales grew, Sears expanded its production, shipping, and sales offices to locations across the U.S. To provide the materials needed for the Modern Homes division, Sears operated a lumber mill in Cairo, Illinois. 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. A kick-off celebration was held March 3, 2023, for the newly renamed BMO Stadium. 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. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. when you switch jobs, buy a house, and go on an international trip, all , in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. And, to top it off, Gordon-Van Tine has a model almost the same. If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? Here is the Uriel or Conway at 408 Bond Street. 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. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). Whitehouse. True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. Tasty Soft Garlic and Herb Bread Sticks Recipe How to Make it in 23 Simple Steps, Villa Faberge! One Magnolia built in Lincoln, Nebraska, was demolished in 1985. 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. And it led me to dig a little deeper into the history of my community.. 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. , something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. 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. The CNDDB is comprised of two data components: Text information and spatial information. Thousands of developments in cities, suburbs, and exurbs have sprung up since with a seemingly endless amount of homes that were built between World War II and today. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. We just love the Walton model! 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. Our home also resembles the Bedford Model # P3249, 1926 (this was not in your listings). Sears licensed the plans for the Argyle from a. real estate builder/developer named Jud Yoho. took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Your comment will appear after it has been previewed and approved by the blog author. Government spending was dedicated to housing in an unprecedented manner as the mantra was driven home that the ideal was a nuclear family in a 3-bedroom suburban house with a car in every driveway. But it was a different story when Sears began selling house building kits in 1908. sub 2:15 half marathon training plan; national database of sears homes. Sears offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. He published the design as #466 in his 1912 "Craftsman Bungalows" catalog. As its mail-order catalogs were already sent to millions of homes, Sears had a distinct advantage over other kit-home competitors. 168/Matoka, 301 Weller Avenue, La Porte, Indiana probable Sears Modern Home No. Thank you for visiting! 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. Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; 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. 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. TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox. According to the US Census, there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. One final note about our list: as I've mentioned, our list includes, for the most part, homes that we have located, ourselves, but also those that we have learned about from other people. Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. Kmart History | Search Archives | Sears Holdings Alumni | sears.com | kmart.com : Thursday, Mar. From 1931-1942 Sears sold about 5,000 houses altogether. [8] By 1934, Sears had stopped offering mortgages. Dover, Chateau, and Lexington models are particularly plentiful there! Although it is sometimes claimed that no Sears kit homes were built after 1940, Sears continued to offer pre-cut kit homes through 1941 and into early 1942. Theres a whole checklist of signs to look for. 1. One of the most expensive models was the Magnolia, a 10-room Colonial-style house with. Sales slowly recovered as the United States emerged from the Great Depression until 1940. However, in La Porte, we've also found five examples* of houses that look like a great match for the No. The iron strapping itself can be strait or curved, but the curlicue is always there, if it's iron strapping from Sears. While researching the property, Harbst learned it was among the first homes built in the boroughs Homestead Park neighborhood. Fast forward to this past summer --early August of 2022. What was up with this particular model of home building, and are there any original Sears houses left? 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. Andrew Mutch ran across that same article in the American Lumberman, and posted in our group, asking if anyone was interested in looking for some of the old models that might be around. 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. You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. 181, Sears No. The search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. 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 . 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". 217 (early Starlight), Sears Modern Home No, 126, on the left, at 808 W 11th Street, La Porte, Indiana, On the right, Sears Modern Home No. Marie gives the perfect explanation of our Sears House hunt, in this. website, which was published from Oct 2013 to Nov 2014. 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. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. 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. So, each house that we find through these records, represents a great deal of digging, and lots of amassed knowledge in how to attack the task because each county's records system is a little different than others. Damn, it was like. Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. 324 W Johnson Road Sears Jewel, Jewell, or Wilmore (depends on the year). 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 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. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. The Sears Argyle was a small house, about 1,000 square feet, and many of them have been demolished. The wild pursuit began with an a Later, Sears constructed a second mill in Port Newark, New Jersey and purchased the Norwood Sash and Door Company in Norwood, Ohio. Either way, these houses offered variety and quality even if they werent necessarily innovative. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home Excuse me while I openly weep thinking about how many vacation cottages today probably cost the same or even more than house houses in many parts of the country. 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. 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. Original paperwork for the house including blueprints and letters of correspondence from Sears. Park, MD. 126 and a Sears No. 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. Sears Modern Homes were kit homes and the framing members were stamped with a letter and a number to help facilitate construction. 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. I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! ", "How to Properly Identify a Sears Magnolia", "Have You Seen This Kit Schoolhouse? PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. 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. Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. We certainly imagine that the houses have been retro-fitted with one, at this point. When the tiny house movement took off, many builders started offering everything from ready-made prehab homes to foundations and blueprints. Without facts and sales records, we can make an educated guess. After all, future generations became more transient out of circumstance or in light of the digital nomad movement and taking advantage of technology in general, more mobile by choice. 171 examples in La Porte. 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. Photo from Realtor site. In late 1930, sales of Searshomes were starting to tank. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S., is constantly growing, with over 13,600 homes currently listed. Her parents did not care much for the house and eventually moved back into their original farmhouse. Ephemera can help identify a house as a Sears Home. city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. 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! Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes, We started looking around La Porte, Indiana, in 2015. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. They raised four kids in that house, Steel wrote. within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma A Gilded Mansion in Newport Beach, CA (Unreal), Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores. Keep in mind, however, that even though we have found well over 200 Sears houses in the PA and NJ suburbs of Philadelphia, those are densely populated areas. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. excited about this find and I really hope it is one: a Sears No. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Many of the smaller models are regularly torn down. 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. Normajean Moser of McCandless owns a Walton model that was purchased from the Sears Modern Home catalog. Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati As I detailed in the account of the rise and fall of the Sears empire, this literally led them to become the largest retailer in America because they had so many burners going at onceand their Modern Homes kits, and even the home buying process itself, were part of that in addition to catalog and retail sales. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck and Co. published specialty catalogs offering house plans and building materials. My uncle mentioned that he had found some shipping labels from Sears in the house and when we asked my grandmother about it, she said: Oh, yes, we ordered it from the Sears catalog, Chabot said. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. All these years later it is still a fortress.. Precut lumber was cut to the appropriate lengths and angles based on where the framing timber would be used in the house. On another block of W 11th Street, there is an example of the Sears Modern Home No. Lara Solonickne, who writes the blog. 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. We just can't say, because we can't access those records. 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. They had. 06/16/2022 . Powered by, Table of Sears Houses in La Porte, Indiana. Sadly, surviving Argyles do tend to be heavily altered there are probably lots more hiding in plain sight. Construction of the houses took nine months which were completed in 1919. Balloon frames could be built faster and generally only required one carpenter. Through those two resources, we can see not only kit-house catalogs, but also lumber-yard plan books, which offered house plans to those who were building their homes, in the 19-teens through 1930s, in the traditional method, of hiring a contractor, and buying the building resources locally. Sears has opened the doors to its vast archival collection and invited the public to peek inside. As only a small percentage of these homes were documented when built, finding these houses today often requires detailed research to properly identify them. Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. Despite this large number, Sears houses are still, actually, rare, and only make up about 2% of the houses built in their era. 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 could keep manufacturing costs down compared to standard builders and competing catalogs because they had their own manufacturing facilities by then and were able to mass-produce wood, asphalt, insulation material, hardware, and everything else needed to produce a home that wasnt a Habitat for Humanity hut. 168 / Matoka: I am really (really!) 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. It's highly improbable that any model could hit the 1,700 mark. I have seen articles throughout the years about Sears homes in the Pittsburgh area, she wrote after reading the Trib story. national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. Its not like nowadays where you move, wait for your stuff to arrive, and if youre a work-at-home like me, youre pretty much unable to work while you wait for a technician to ensure you have Internet access. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. Buyers could hire a contractor to assemble their home or build it themselves following the detailed instructions that were included. In the early years, the models were identified with numbers. While I'm at it, I'll tell you a bit about our mission, as a research team. The American Lumberman article referred to this area where the houses were being built, as the Fairview neighborhood. Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? 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. CNDDB Maps and Data. But at the time, there was a housing boom taking place as people wanted to escape the crowds and disease of the cities. How did Sears Modern Homes come to be? The two-story schoolhouse was priced at $11,500 and its design included six classrooms, a library, an auditorium, and a superintendent's office. New York state is 4th, with 1,679 houses found. Historic house: Built in 1911, this Sears home sits on a large, corner lot in a historic district, surrounded by antebellum homes. Had the. To see a variety of models similar to the Mitchell, that were offered during the kit-house era, see this article. 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!

Clay Courts In California, Articles N