national database of sears homes

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. Images are available 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. 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. , there were about 88.7 million people living in the United States. 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. 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). We have a database of all the models that have been identified nationwide to date. Other companies such as Aladdin sold mail-order homes, but thats all they sold, Chabot said. 264B155. A recent Tribune-Review story about a 1922 Sears mail-order home in McCandless that has most of its original features intact drew scores of letters and comments from Pittsburgh area residents interested in learning more about the unique role these houses played in U.S. history. This site is a tribute to the original Sears Houses in Cincinnati *Sears Americus - Temple, PA*It's been about 3 months since the last update Images are available by . Ohio resident Marie Vore reached out to us one day, on our Sears Modern Homes Facebook page, with a question about a possible Sears house that she had run across in a real estate listing. The multi-million-dollar home has been red-tagged while two other Goodwall sheet plaster was an early drywall-like product offered by Sears and may be an indication of a Sears Modern Home. The houses made it as far as Alaska and Canada, as the parts were delivered by railroad. If your house was built between 1908-1940, theres a chance it might be an original Sears house. 181, and the early version of the. 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. The builder was W.L. 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. Run by experienced researcher Cindy Catanzaro (with a little help from yours truly). You can contact Tony by email at tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter . Chabot notes that Sears mail-order homes sold before 1916 did not use precut lumber that was stamped with numbers to guide construction. Were most Sears Houses built by the owners? In 1908, Sears issued its first specialty catalog for houses, Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, featuring 44 house styles ranging in price from US $360$2,890. Researching Historic Kit and Plan Book Homes. Thanks for giving me a new appreciation for the Argyle! 02, 2023 : History: Catalogs: Homes: Products: Brands: Stores: People Historic Homes : . 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. Sears Modern Homes were kit homes and the framing members were stamped with a letter and a number to help facilitate construction. Welcome to Sears Homes! 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.". If you have any authenticating source for us, we'd love to hear about it (you can email me directly at SearsHouseSeeker@gmail.com). Harbst said many of the original features in her home are intact and the exterior remains mostly unchanged. Related: Floating Chairs and Texas McMansions | McMansions vs Really Big Houses | Strange Mansion in Carmel, Indiana | What is a Mansion. 06/16/2022 . According to Betcone, the two models that were the top sellers for Sears in 1930 totaled just over 100 houses a year. 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. The last Sears Modern Homes catalog was issued in 1940. Our national database of Sears houses in the U.S. has over 13,600 homes on it, and, after Ohio and Illinois, Pennsylvania is #3 in U.S. states with, at today's count, 1,963 Sears homes found. Measuring in at a roomy 3,500 square feet, the . Jud Yoho may also have been the designer behind the popular Sears model called the Hollywood. The first mail order for a Sears house was filled that year. 110 (, 1524 2nd Street, La Porte, Indiana earliest version of the Sears No. 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. 217 was not shown with an in-house bathroom. My daughter and son-in-law have a 1924 Homeville in Abington! The HMS data portal is a collection of models, simulations and synthetic observations of the Sun. [5] The method was originally named in the sense that the structure was light and could be lifted away like a balloon. 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. 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. 118 In Columbia, Where are the Sears Houses - February 2023 Edition, The Strange Case of the Wandering Bungalow, DC House Cat Chiming In - Historic Mail-Order Homes, Same Name, Different House Part 2 - From Aurora to the Elmwood, 1926 Sears Special Supplement from AntiqueHome.org. Her parents did not care much for the house and eventually moved back into their original farmhouse. Others were not but were still pre-cut kit homes built from plans and materials from Sears. Weve got so much fucking housing just sitting there that NO ONE should be condemned to homelessness. Sears Modern Homes are something we totally need to bring back from the past for this. [37] Similiar references are made to boyhood homes of Richard Nixon and Warren Buffett. Photo from Realtor site. Following is a list of Sears Homes enthusiasts who have agreed The original "Sears Modern Homes" community page on Facebook, for those interested in Sears homes. 162 Sears houses still standing, including those in the city of Alexandria. Having just covered the Fallen Titan that is Sears department stores, something that piqued my interest was the idea that you could buy literal houses from the catalog. All these years later it is still a fortress.. 199 (the predecessor to the Sears, We've put eleven houses on our list that we are pretty confident are the early version of the. 2) Look for shipping labels. You can contact Rose through her Facebook group, "Sears Kit Homes" or email: Magnolia2047@gmail.com. national database of sears homes. Whitehouse. Stevenson, Katherine Cole, and Jandl, H. Ward, (1995), Davis, Michael W.R. and Schweitzer, Robert (1990), This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 21:18. Powered by, This September 2017 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this short video story by the Washington Post. We soon realized that she had a keen eye for Sears houses (and a keen love for them, as her great-grandfather had built a Sears Martha Washington in Oakwood, Ohio), and she joined our research group. 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. Because the Modern Homes division sales records were destroyed, there is no way to definitively verify the number of Sears houses that still exist. Open to the public. Harbst said it wasnt until after she bought the house that she learned homes were once sold through mail-order catalogs. According to the catalog image, both models have only a partial porch at the front of the house. 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. Sears provided "capital and materials", on the condition that lots and foundations were already in place. You'll also notice that the No. 1232, later marketed as the No. Capture from Google Streetview. Documented Sears houses have been found across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. One of the biggest questions that researchers have been wanting to answer is: What is the Top-Selling Sears House of All Time? national database of sears homes42 ft gibson houseboat. Asphalt shingles were cheap to manufacture and ship, and easy and inexpensive to install. 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. 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. Ohio and Illinois are still leading, though, with 2700+ and 2300+, respectively. [5] Early balloon structures were very basic, to enable home buyers to assemble them independently and also because designers had yet to see the implications the method held.[5]. The larger Victorian-style houses that were already there and scant in number were out of reach for working class first-time home buyers. Sears houses could also be ordered with reversed floor plans. Please contact me if you would like a free How Many Sears Houses Are Still Out There? You usually just left with the clothes on your back and a few trunks, and that was it. We scour real estate listings, we "drive" around streets (using Google maps Streetview) in towns with a concentration of homes of the era, and we especially love researching, using primary sources such as historic newspapers and the old mortgage and deed resources held in each town's Register of Deeds office, looking for houses that were financed through Sears. 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. Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. Square . In their own way, houses with Craftsman-style design elements often managed their own form of ebullient excess such as Modern Home No. 3 in U.S. with, at todays count, 1,963 Sears homes found.. But articles are so scattered by time, date and location that it is difficult to realize the scope and number of Sears homes here in the Pittsburgh area.. 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. Ruth's Beauty Parlor: A Sears No. [8] By 1934, Sears had stopped offering mortgages. Once again true to the companys roots, youre more apt to find Sears catalog homes still standing in former factory towns of the Midwest. 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. Photo from Realtor site. Some of these homes were based on models offered in the Sears Modern Homes catalog. PDF See the video of my interview on the St. Louis Business Journal's website. House was moved to Carbondale, CO in about 1972, Still trying to find more info.. 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. 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. 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. Built around 1917 home resembles the Hazelton Model C2025,l 1915-1920 and the Vallonia Model P13049A or P13049B, 1927-1932. Because these homes were constructed using pre-cut lumber and plans provided by Sears, these homes can be considered to be "Sears Modern Homes". Another old model found predominantly in that Lakeview area, was the. So, I've added an asterisk next to the addresses of these possible No. Simple theme. that ranged from simple and rustic to utterly decadent. While financing through Sears helped many homeowners purchase homes, many of those purchasers defaulted during the ensuing Great Depression. The nine easy signs follow: 1) Look for stamped lumber in the basement or attic. 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. Search. If any of you have ever been interested in coming to see me do a kit home Parts for the homes, which were sold between 1908 and 1940, were delivered to the nearest rail station. 306 Highland, Madison, WI. I now live in St. Louis, Missouri, and am sometimes asked if there are any Sears houses here. This was the case with most of the compact pre-1920 Sears houses. Local building requirements sometimes dictated that certain elements of the house construction be done professionally and varied depending on where the house was constructed. 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. The NHPD is the only de-duplicated source for comprehensive data on the publicly supported housing property inventory. The search for Sears Roebuck houses nationwide was launched in the mid-1970's when the, This was a case of unfortunate timing. I think that we had only a handful of houses already on the list a few. Researchers Cindy Catanzaro and Andrew Mutch, and the late Donna Bakke, put together a document explaining Bea's work, and listing 345 of the houses that she found, which you can see. Philadelphia Inquirer: Sears Homes In the Philly S Where are the Sears Houses - February 2023 Edition, The Strange Case of the Wandering Bungalow, DC House Cat Chiming In - Historic Mail-Order Homes, Same Name, Different House Part 2 - From Aurora to the Elmwood, 1926 Sears Special Supplement from AntiqueHome.org. While I'm at it, I'll tell you a bit about our mission, as a research team. Marie's great-grandfather, Freeman Pretzinger, built this Sears. 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. Chabot said while Sears wasnt the first or only company to sell mail-order homes, they were unique among the competition. I just loved the look of it, she said. People always seemed surprised to learn that Sears sold home kits. easier. 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). Spatial information is available through GIS downloads or can be viewed in the BIOS Viewer. This means that information about the Modern Homes department is scarce. 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. Posted by ; fort lincoln cemetery obituaries; 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. 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. 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. Species: 4,512; Preserves: 238; Sightings: 95,174 . Click here. 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. Not all Sears houses became private residences. Simple theme. 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. to you on Flickr or Pinterest. 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 browse through and enjoy the 1,000+ posts and 5,000+ photos! The house was in original condition and was never modified while we lived there - it was sold in 2003 or early 2004. In addition to home building costs being up to 40% lower than traditional building, you also had the option to bring your own blueprints to Sears to get them modified for far less than itd comparatively cost to go to a builder or architect today.