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. 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. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. houses that share a name also share either a number, a floor plan or had Marie's great-grandfather, Freeman Pretzinger, built this Sears. Compare house designs to original catalog images. Its as sturdy as a house as Ive ever seen. 5 Jun. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). Some Home Club homes have deeds from the "Port Newark Lumber and Material Company". within a fe A very special, authenticated Aladdin home just hit the market in Takoma 4120 Adams St., Gary, IN. That is unique to Sears. Text information is available through RareFind 5 and provides essential information about special status species and occurrences. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? 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. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. The HMS data portal is a collection of models, simulations and synthetic observations of the Sun. 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. As some areas begin to see population booms, such as the tech triangle region of Raleigh, Durham, and Cary as more companies and tech talent make exodus from California and New York based on what I hear from taxi drivers and my university contacts in the region at games conferences every year? A Newport Beach home remains dangerously close to tumbling down a cliffside after the ground underneath gave way on Friday morning. Some of the models are easier to identify visually and their counts may be disproportionately high. national database of sears homescalgary police organizational chart. Complete List of Sears Homes | Aurora, IL Sears Modern Homes offered more than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes over the line's 34-year history. 115 cuts off abruptly, right in the middle of the front facade, even with the left side of the upper window, and it then has a straight slope porch roof jutting out. Without facts and sales records, we can make an educated guess. I don't know the model, but it was a 2 story - 6 room house - 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, living room, dining room, and very small galley type kitchen. Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey Authenticated Sears Lewiston 261 N. Jackson St., North Plainfield, NJ 1929 This great-looking Sears Lewiston was built in 1929, and used as a model home for Sears after it was built by Anthony P. Raffaniello, and his wife, Helena. [16], There was no single architect for the Sears designs. 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. 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. national database of sears homes. Sometimes the legal description is nice and straightforward, like, "lot 15, block C, Tanglewood Estates, in the town of Dunham". Sears' first kit houses sold for $650 to $2,500, or approximately $16,500 to $63,700 in today's dollars. The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. 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. Not all Sears houses became private residences. 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. This is the case for the southern New Jersey counties that are suburbs of Philadelphia. of "Where are the Sears Houses?" 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. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). Our research team especially loves searching Pennsylvania for Sears houses because there are so many there, Chabot said. Ive visited New Orleans several times and love the style of the buildings there. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. Please browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! 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. 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. Im looking at this cute little Cape Cod that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Because of the economics after 1931, I can say I am. R.L. Hunter Press: Mail Order House Research . Sales peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression. 110 (, 1524 2nd Street, La Porte, Indiana earliest version of the Sears No. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. However, these stamps were not used on lumber shipped before 1916, when Sears first started offering pre-cut lumber. We saw that on numerous Rossville/No. Sears mail-order homes prove plentiful in Western Pennsylvania I learn all kinds of interesting stuff here; thanks! The group has identified nearly 540 of the estimated 1,000 Sears mail-order homes that are believed to have been constructed in the region. We just love the Walton model! Sears Lewiston: A Sears Model Home in New Jersey - Sears House Seeker 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. Home Whatever Happened to Those Mail-Order Houses From the Sears Catalog? Really, they couldn't find any space in there for the Modern Homes records? Please contact me if you would like a free 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. 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. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? Simply put, life was rougher. 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. CNDDB Maps and Data. Click on any of the linked house listings to view a picture . Images are available Here is a year-by-year list of houses as they were advertised in the Sears Modern Homes catalogs. There were about 132 million people by the time Sears stopped selling Sears Modern Homes kits in 1940. | Sears Modern Homes", "Sears Houses in Arlington Virginia: A Comprehensive List", "How Sears built an entire local neighborhood", "Historic Structures Crystal Lake Historical Society", "Sears Houses in Elgin Illinois arranged according to model name", "Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes in the Philly Suburbs and Sears House Hunters", "Where are the rest of the Sears houses in the U.S.? There were less people, but quality housing that could get built easily was a must for the quickly-growing population as World War I veterans came home and started families, and an immigration boom was taking place. In 1916, Sears began shipping pre-cut lumber in its mail-order kit homes that contained stamped numbers used to match pieces during construction. Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. 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. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. The suburbs of Philadelphia are not the only places where we find Sears houses, by the way. Sears Houses In the U.S. If my house is not a kit, where did it come from? For more information on who we are, and what we do, visit our website: All photos in these blog posts are the property of the author of this blog- link to this blog. An open floor plan with sensible . According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. 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". I-79 restrictions begin Wednesday night in Allegheny County, West Deer firefighters respond to bedroom fire, heavy smoke at Poplar Street home, Man shot dead in McKeesport the 4th slaying this week and 5th in a month, Medical examiner IDs man killed in McKeesport shooting, Report on Allegheny County Jail deaths finds no 'trends or common factors' that led to them, Historic Hempfield cemetery seeks volunteers, donors to help care for grounds, 2nd annual 'Restaurant Ramble' features 10 downtown New Kensington eateries, Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan actor, dies after brain aneurysm, TV Talk: Mel Brooks History of the World, Part II belatedly arrives on Hulu, Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source, story about a 1922 Sears mail-order home in McCandless, number of those homes are featured on the organizations website. 06/16/2022 . national database of sears homes - assuredtriumph.com 171 often has a full front porch that ends up extending all the way to the left side of the house. That year, the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan, offered the first kit homes through mail order. 306 Highland, Madison, WI. Compare that to about 330 million people today. 2023 Trib Total Media | All Rights Reserved. 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. of the original Sears homes built from kits are still standing today. 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. Browse the list below to see if there are Modern Homes in your city or state, or to find someone who owns the same model as you. 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. rebeccahunter1216@gmail.com. 171 examples in La Porte. So, they are likely from Sears. Another key figure in the original research into Sears kit houses, was a woman named Beatrice Lask. Call me a cynic, but I often wonder why kit houses were not stolen. This is a complete list of Sears houses in Aurora (and two in Montgomery that were originally in Aurora). 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.. It was just recently sold again earlier this year. 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. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears Roebuck and Co. published specialty catalogs offering house plans and building materials. homes for rent in laplace 70068. national database of sears homes. At one point, I realized that I needed to organize a list of online catalog resources, so I put together this blog post, which has links to catalogs not only from Daily Bungalow and AntiqueHome, but to the many catalogs uploaded on another key resource, Archive.org (have you donated lately?). It's also possible that some local builder just put together a similar design, to compete with the Sears houses being built in town, but, some of these examples are on blocks of streets that are lined with Sears houses from this early spec offering by Sears. But David Betcone told us what model was in first place as of 1931. Thank you for visiting! 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. 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. Im looking at this cute little. Precut framing timbers, an innovation pioneered by Aladdin, were first offered by Sears in 1916. There was one snippet in the press release that only a couple newspapers reprinted: "Following twelve years of usefulness, one old design was removed from the home catalogue in 1928, as antiquated after having been constructed more than 1700 times, which probably constitutes the world's record for any construction duplication from a single house plan, he [Betcone] says.". 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. Carrying on with Same Name, Different House topic we find that some of the 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. Homes built after 1916 can be identified as Sears kit homes by numbers stamped on the timbers. It is unknown whether any were purchased or built. This Sears mail-order kit home in McCandless is owned by Normajean Moser. Hi, Lauren! Despite being prefab, they got more character than the endless sea of suburban eyesores we got out there now. 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. In the story, homeowner Alicia Dallago said she had no idea the home she bought in 1998 was built from a kit. Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. that was $886 in 1940 dollars, about $16,000 today. Sears offered 370 models over the 32 years it sold houses by catalog. Sears is estimated to have sold about 70,000 of their home building kits from 1908-1940 and its currently estimated that. Between 1908 and 1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold nearly 75,000 kit homes through its Modern Homes program, which featured 447 styles of houses, ranging from large multistory dwellings to tiny summer cottages with an optional outhouse. Marie gives the perfect explanation of our Sears House hunt, in this. 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. 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 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. I saw a recent article in The Star Ledger about Sears Homes that mentioned your blog. muhammad ali i am the greatest speech transcript . The mortgage program was also a PR disaster, as many of the families Sears foreclosed upon refused to do further business with the company. Interested in hearing about Rose's near-death experience? Rebecca lives in Elgin, Illinois, and undertook a huge research project, to find, and document, kit houses in that town. Did materials and labor really get that much more expensive between now and then? True to the companys roots in selling to rural Midwesterners, they even had a catalog for farmhouses, barns, and other barn buildings. Here are both of these models in the 1911/12 Sears Modern Homes catalog. 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. 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 Atlanta and Chateau models were probably the great-grandaddy of the modern McMansion, with the Malden model being its odd little cousin that sits in the potato salad at the family reunion, what with the odd arrangement of dormer windows although they arent fake. 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). This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati The truth is out there, and I think you've found it! [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. There are examples of modern homes built based on the design of Sears Modern Home. You'll also notice that the No. Authorities shoot, wound carjacking suspect who fired at officers 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. 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. Charleston, West Virginia is a hotspot for Sears model homes, in addition to Aladdin and Montgomery Ward homes. The company was forced to liquidate $11 million in defaulted debt. I have seen articles throughout the years about Sears homes in the Pittsburgh area, she wrote after reading the Trib story. Those are ridiculously difficult to pin down. 175, 1911/12 catalog image for the Sears Modern Home No. Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois in particular are your best bet for finding Sears homes although Newark, New Jersey apparently still has a couple. You can search the house listings by clicking on a group of years ( 1908-1914 , 1915-1920 , 1921-1926 , 1927-1932 and 1933-1940 ). 1916 Sears Roebuck Modern Homes. [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. 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". We could make the assumption that the model we have located the most was, in fact, the top seller. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati [15] 1908 was the only year the schoolhouse appeared in the catalog. But, in the case of the early, non pre-cut houses, when we know that a large number of houses were bought by a company (or offered up on spec, by Sears), we sometimes see that special versions were created for these neighborhoods, specifically. national database of sears homes. Sold for 12 years and discontinued in 1928. Originally marketed as the. But what if you want something bigger than a tiny house, but not as gargantuan as the average American single family home? Stamped lumber: Most easily found in unfinished spaces like a basement or attic, framing members were stamped with a letter and a number. Beginning in 1916, the catalogs showed an additional floor plan that did have a bathroom: The rest of the examples of Sears houses in La Porte, that we have found to date, are one-off examples, so were probably individual purchases by the original homeowner, or a few spec houses by the realty company mentioned in the American Lumberman article. In some cases, Sears provided construction services to assemble the homes. Photo from Realtor site. 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. Sadly, surviving Argyles do tend to be heavily altered there are probably lots more hiding in plain sight. Shipping label image from my mother's family's 1911 Sears No. 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! Camden County would be a great place to search, because we know that there are Sears houses in Collingswood, Haddon Township, Haddonfield, and Haddon Heights but, how many? 159. In it, they included excerpts from an interview with David S. Betcone, who was the chief architect for Sears at the time. 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. So this blog has been radio silent for a while now! Welcome to Sears Homes! We cannot be absolutely certain, but the numbers do not support it. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. Sears Homes Enthusiasts And, shortly after me, came Karen DeJeet, a Pittsburgh resident who learned of Sears houses when she found out that she lived in one (the.
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